An instrument for recording, preserving, and reproducing sounds, the record being a tracing of a phonautograph etched in some solid material. Reproduction is accomplished by means of a system attached to an elastic diaphragm. This older term is almost completely replaced for modern devices by the word
phonograph (or
hi-fi), and technological changes have made the term sound antiquated, and it is usually used to refer to older non-electronic versions of the phonograph.
[obsolescent] See: phonograph, hi-fi