Record players trace their origins to the late 19th century, with Thomas Edison’s phonograph of 1877 generally seen as the first true sound recorder and playback device, and Emile Berliner’s flat‑disc gramophone of 1887–1888 shaping what people now recognize as the classic record player format.

Core timeline

  • 1857 – Early ancestor: Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville invents the phonautograph , the first device to record sound waves visually on soot‑coated paper, but it could not play sound back.
  • 1877 – Practical playback: Thomas Edison introduces the phonograph , using a tinfoil‑wrapped cylinder that could both record and reproduce sound, often cited as the birth of recorded audio as a technology.
  • 1887–1888 – “Record player” DNA: Emile Berliner patents the gramophone and then the flat disc record , replacing cylinders with discs and laying down the core design used by later record players and turntables.

So if someone asks “when were record players invented,” the historically precise answer is that the underlying tech appears in 1877, while the flat‑disc style most people picture arrives about a decade later in 1887–1888.

When did they become popular?

  • Late 1800s–early 1900s: Gramophones and disc records evolve into commercial home entertainment devices, and companies like Columbia Phonograph (founded 1889) help build a record industry around them.
  • 20th century boom: Through the early and mid‑1900s, disc‑based players become a standard way to enjoy music at home, eventually giving way to hi‑fi turntables and then stereo systems. Record players were widely popular by the early 20th century, even though the basic invention dates to the late 19th century.

Modern angle and “latest news”

  • Vinyl revival: In the 2020s, record players and turntables are enjoying a major comeback as part of a vinyl revival, with new automatic and Bluetooth‑enabled turntables blending vintage records with modern convenience.
  • Current innovations: Brands now release fully automatic decks with built‑in preamps, Bluetooth, and even repeat functions or advanced drive systems, showing that the record player is still evolving nearly 150 years after Edison’s first machine.

In short: early sound recorders date to 1857, the first playback machine arrives in 1877, and the recognizably “modern” flat‑disc record player concept solidifies with Berliner’s gramophone and discs around 1887–1888.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.