Busted, at least so far as their experiment parameters. They showed that the old Edison wax cylinders recorded speech surprisingly well (Grant demonstrated on an old dictograph)...they did achieve some result on their self-made pottery, that is they did record what seemed to sound like almost "ghostly" voices, but an audio technician using quite Archie Johnson-like technology was unable to isolate any intelligible speech as was portrayed on the CSI ep.
They used two different parameters - one was the CSI scenario using an improvised broom-bristle "stylus" and the other was more the X-Files "Christ's Greatest Hits" :lol: single-reed/glass ball stylus mounted on a drum head.
The conclusion they reached was that the clay was a poor medium in which to capture recordable sound, even though they did get a result that had them almost freaking out in the workshop. They decided that the wax, or another medium of that same consistency, would simply be more efficient and that the clay captured too much noise.
My problem was that the audio tech analyzed a tape recording of the clay "record", not the clay itself. The stylus they used to reproduce the voices may have been the wrong size. I'm old enough to not only remember vinyl records but have a pretty hefty collection, and I know what even a degraded needle will do to the sound (not to mention the condition of the grooves on the record)...
Good ep, though. Adam and Jamie also busted the snapped-cable-cutting-a-person-in-half myth.
