"[[]The phonograph's[]] first great star was an operatic tenor, Enrico Caruso, whose voice remains one of the most transfixing phenomena in the history of the medium. The ping in his tone, that golden bark, penetrated the haze of the early technology and made the man himself viscerally present." -- [http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/050606crat_atlarge|Alex Ross].