The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Spotify is an internet service that lets you listen to virtually any music currently in print. There is a free version available for most desktops and some portables. The paid version is available for almost all devices and eliminates the occasional ads heard on the free version. Just go to Spotify.com or your app store to download.

I mention this because there is a collection of Edison records available for listening. Once you've logged into Spotify, search for "Thomas Edison Records" and you'll find about 25 albums of Edison material, organized by category (ragtime, vaudeville, Hawaiian, etc.) The quality of the transfers varies from excellent to so-so, but free is free. Artists are not identified (except for cylinder announcements), but are easy enough to determine from reference materials.

Enjoy!

Those collections are on other streaming sites as well. I wonder about their provenance - if they haven't been taken from Archive.org and other places, even YouTube. Because the SQ varies so much, and some of the transfers have quite a lot of digital artifacts, similar to low bit rate MP3's and such.