Reis telephone

[3] In 1861, Philipp Reis succeeded in creating a device that captured sound, converted it to electrical impulses which were transmitted via electrical wires to another device that transformed these pulses into recognizable sounds similar to the original acoustical source.

In 1862, Reis demonstrated his telephone to Wilhelm von Legat, Inspector of the Royal Prussian Telegraph Corps who produced an account of it (Legat, 1862), a translation of which was obtained by Thomas Edison in 1875 and which was used in Edison's successful development of the carbon microphone.

The first person to publicly exhibit a telephone for transmission of articulate speech was A. G. Bell.

[4]As Reis was considering his invention as a means of broadcasting music, he termed his microphone the 'singing station'.

The diaphragm was mounted on the top of a closed wooden sound box, with a speaking horn on the front.

The image, below, shows an advanced version where the iron bar is clamped to a cigar-box-shaped resonator.

[citation needed] In 1865, however, British-American scientist David E. Hughes used the Reis telephone with "good results".