With one of the world’s most significant collections of acoustic gramophones and vintage audio equipment, Gramophone Music pays homage to our enduring love affair with analog music – and the eternal quest for the perfect sound.
Gramophone Music’s main aim is to get music lovers up close and personal with the remarkable music-making equipment of yesteryear – and every exhibit and machine in the museum can be accessed and played. This is not your conventional museum where everything is behind glass; here every artifact is working and playable.
Our collection boasts some of the finest sound reproduction equipment from the past 140 years, from Thomas Edison’s pioneering phonographs, to intricate handmade gramophones, reel-to-reel tape recorders, vintage jukeboxes, portable music players, and even a spooky selection of ‘talking dolls’.
The centrepiece of the collection is an exceedingly rare selection of EMG and EXPERT handmade gramophones, distinguished by their giant papier-appliqué horns – widely considered the best record players ever made.
Our music library holds more than 100,000 recordings in every format, from Edison’s wax cylinders to modern digital formats. The artists range from Dame Nellie Melba on 78rpm shellac to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard on newly-released vinyl.
Among the collection's many discographies is a huge array of Australian country and western music on shellac 78s, as well as a dedicated sister site on the great British crooner, Al Bowlly.
