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The format Jamaican music was built on. Cheap to press, quick to turn around and disposable enough to chase a trend, the seven-inch let a producer cut a rhythm on Monday and have it in a dance by the weekend — with the vocal on the A-side and the version on the flip. The album came late to Jamaica and never displaced it.

The 807 transmitting valve used in the custom tube amplifiers built for UK dub sound systems; in one documented design four of them delivered on the order of two thousand watts, prized for a warm, powerful bass timbre.

The lacquer-coated disc a studio cuts one at a time, called soft wax because it wears out after a few dozen plays. It was meant as a test pressing on the way to a stamper; Jamaica made it a finished product instead. A dubplate is an acetate, and the whole economy of exclusive versions, specials and clash tunes rests on a format that was never supposed to leave the cutting room.

The disc-cutting machine that inscribes a mix onto a soft acetate blank, turning a studio version into a one-off dubplate; a key piece of sound-system electronics that made exclusive tunes a competitive currency.

The electronic crossover that splits the audio signal into bass, mid and treble bands before amplification so each band drives its own amplifier and cabinet, replacing passive networks of capacitors and coils in higher-powered rigs.

The frequency-splitting electronics that divide a sound-system signal into bass, mid and top bands for separate amplification, central to the multi-way 'string' architecture of UK dub sets and a defining feature of custom pre-amps.

The iron-cored transformer that couples a valve amplifier to its speakers; in Jamaica the winding of these coils by hand, as King Tubby did to expand bass depth, became a signature electronics skill of the sound-system craft.

The heavy low-frequency loudspeaker at the heart of a bass bin, typically a fifteen-, eighteen- or twenty-one-inch cone, whose size and excursion the box is built around. Sound systems prize robust, high-excursion drivers.

A ported box loading that tunes a port to extend low frequencies, contrasted in sound-system practice with the horn-loaded scoop favoured for reggae weight. Used where a shallower, less horn-coloured bass was wanted.

The internal bracing, panel thickness and double-layering used to stop a speaker box from flexing and colouring the sound, a craft judgement that separates a tight, controlled bin from a boomy one.

The compression driver that feeds the mid-range and tweeter horns of a sound system, converting amplifier power into the efficient, penetrating mid and top essential to cutting through a bass-heavy mix.

Direct-coupled solid-state power amplifier (1967) delivering roughly 150W/channel with unprecedented reliability; a symbol of the transistor amplifier's arrival that let sound systems chase raw wattage without the fragility of valves.

The sound system's architecture: purpose-built cabinets — bass scoops, mid-range "houses of joy", tweeter horns — designed and joined by hand so a set could move air no shop-bought speaker approached. Box-building is a craft lineage of its own, and a sound's stack remains its visible signature.

Small oscillator effect box, typically built around a pair of 555 timer ICs, that produces the swooping siren tones selectors use to lift tension and bridge records; a hand-built staple of the dance popularised on UK sound systems from the 1980s.

A one-off acetate cut for a single sound system — originally a test pressing, then the core weapon of clash culture. A sound commissions an artist to voice a custom version of a known tune naming that sound, and plays it as an exclusive nobody else can answer. The dubplate turns a record into a possession, and its economy sustains a whole layer of the business.