The Electrical Imagination: Sound Analogies, Equivalent Circuits, and the Rise of Electroacoustics, 1863-1939

The transformation of acoustics into electroacoustics in the early twentieth century was brought about by at least two significant changes in the mechanical world of acoustics. Electrical technologies entered the acoustics laboratory and profoundly changed the research practices therein. At the same time, electrodynamic theory and electric circuit design advanced rapidly to replace mechanical conceptions as the explanatory basis for the physical sciences. Equivalent-circuit diagrams facilitated a reductionist representation as well as the design of real circuits for electric generation and manipulation of sound by translating acoustic problems into electric systems. Consequently, electroacoustics became more than a research technology and evolved from a laboratory practice into a new way of thinking and talking about sound.