Volta Labs Recordings, 1880-1885

The Museum's recording collection has begun to benefit from a noninvasive sound recovery process developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.A test of six recordings has undergone the process on imaging equipment installed by Berkeley Labs at the Library of Congress. These imaging methods protect the records from damage and can circumvent many aspects of pre-existing damage. These recordings, tested for sound recovery to date, are examples of experiments conducted by the Volta Laboratory Associates—Alexander Graham Bell, his cousin Chichester Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter—roughly between 1880 and 1885.