Orchorsol wrote:I'm interested to hear why you dislike the Model 32 Marco.
Andy, I would first like to stress out that, if you like it, I'm happy with you and would do nothing to convice you otherwise. However, to my eyes the 32 is the sole genuine external-horn gramophone that I would mistake for a crap-o-phone. Its pyramid-style, un-ornated, style-less case is the least impressive of all in my opinion. Technically, made as it was with a mix of orthophonic and non-orthophonic parts, it's a nonsense and it was terribly outdated even when new.
gramophone-georg wrote:What about all the outside horn cylinder phonographs? I think you're trying to rewrite history a little, Marco.
You are the first to mention phonographs, we were discussing about
gramophones. In any case, cylinder phonographs fall so short from being an icon today, that I have yet to find anyone who knew about their existence before showing them one of my machines (of course I'm talking about men-in-the-street, not other collectors or enthusiasts).
Coming to the point of "re-writing history", I challenge anyone to demonstrate that before the "improved Berliner Gramophone" with motor of 1897, gramophones had any substantial penetration in society with millions of units sold. As a side note, the mentioned "Nipper" painting was registered as trade mark in 1900, so once again we're at the beginning of the 20th century.
As early as 1906, the first internal-horn Victrolas were introduced. As already said, by the end of WWI they were largely dominating the market as period ads clearly show, with a vertical fall of number of models of external horn machines available, and many discount sales to get rid of them.
By 1925 orthophonic machines became available. On the other hand, the first experiments for combining a radio receiver with an electric motor/pick-up gramophone began as early as 1922, and by 1925 both Brunswick and Victor, in partnership with RCA, announced their fully electric radio and phonograph machines. By 1926, Brunswick dismissed all of their acoustic machines (although later they re-introduced their Prismatone line) and went all-electric.
I would then say that HMV 32 being a relic of a distant past in 1930 is a statement very hard to challenge.