Month: December 2013

Alan Blumlein and the invention of Stereo

Alan Blumlein was a senior sound engineer at EMI’s Central Research Laboratories (CRL) on the Hayes factory site. He joined the company when Columbia and The Gramophone Company merged in 1931. Over his lifetime he was a prolific inventor, developing huge technological advances within the sound engineering field. After a night at the cinema with… Read more »

Win Scott’s Music Box double CD

When Captain Robert Falcon Scott embarked upon the Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica and the south Pole in 1910 The Gramophone Company (the original name for EMI) lent the expedition two HMV gramophones and several hundred 78 rpm shellac discs, specifically chosen to boost the team’s morale, many of which are referred to in diaries… Read more »

The Silver Spade

This silver spade was used to cut the first sod on the site of the Gramophone and Typewriter Company building site. World famous Gramophone company tenor Edward Lloyd was given the honour of breaking the first sod at the Blyth Road site February 9th, 1907. This spade is currently preserved at the EMI Archive Trust. David Hughes,… Read more »