ABSTRACT
In home audio-playback systems, these are devices that allow the user to modify or direct the signal.
Early sound players did not have genuine controls. In order to have a loud or quiet performance with a turn-of-the-century disc, it was necessary to use a pickup stylus designed for one result or the other. Later, the problem of volume was approached through size of speaker horn or by opening doors or louvers that affected the output of enclosed horns. The first volume controls appear to have been the so-called tone controls of the 1916 Pathéphone, or the Sonora “tone modifier.”
