Who invented the first audio recording device?
Sound recording and reproduction
The first practical sound recording and reproduction device was the mechanical phonograph cylinder, invented by Thomas Edison in 1877 and patented in 1878.[9][10] The invention soon spread across the globe and over the next two decades the commercial recording, distribution, and sale of sound recordings became a growing new international industry, with the most popular titles selling millions of units by the early 1900s. The development of mass-production techniques enabled cylinder recordings to become a major new consumer item in industrial countries and the cylinder was the main consumer format from the late 1880s until around 1910.
Bill Putnam
Putnam was the first person in the US to use artificial reverberation using echo chambers for commercial recording. (The BBC's broadcasting studios in Savoy Hill, London, used for both broadcasting and commercial recording, were the first anywhere to use purpose made echo chambers with both echo send and returns and cue sends and multi-band EQ, and recording to disc and tape as early as 1931.) He also developed the first US multi-band audio equalizer, and with his company Universal Recording Electronics Industries (UREI), he was responsible for the development of classic recording studio equipment including the UREI 1176LN, the UREI Time Align Monitor, and the Universal recordings consoles, which soon became standard equipment in studios all over America. Alongside his friend Les Paul, Putnam was also involved in the early development of stereophonic recording and he founded several major independent recording studios in Chicago, Las Vegas, Hollywood and San Francisco.