The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Check this out,,, nice setup. Colorized picture posted on the Antique Phonograph Society Facebook page.

blizz

Cool photo. When I read the title of this post I thought... it never happed. But as DeeDee says "you're wrong, wrong again." She'd be correct. Thanks for the photo.

Jerry B.

looks like they just strapped the mic to the horn elbow with some type of rubber fabric.

blizz

Great photo. Thanks for posting! S.Levi

Even in the odd situations where I'm actually right, I have a philosophy... "You can be right, or you can be happy." Works for me! Agree, great photo. Even better than my tube type CD/ MP3 player.

Really great photo! If that picture is ca. 1920, then it would seem that the system set up with the Schoolhouse phono is a bit behind the previous attempts. Here is an earlier one by Magnavox, using an adapted Sonora tone-arm playing into a four button carbon microphone. Second photo shows the system in use about 1917, thus making it one of, if not the, earliest electrically amplified phonograph.

That Magnavox set up used a two button carbon microphone and a transformer. It did not really amplify.

The original photo, however, shows a Magnavox high current transmitter connected to the Victoria, rather than the ordinary solid back telephone transmitter fitted to the DeForest OT-10 transmitter. The receiver shown to the left is an MR-6, with a separate detector/amplifier cabinet. This is an unusual set up indeed, for the MR-6 is much more commonly found mounted along with its accociated detector and amplifier in a single cabinet.

holy crap,,,wayyyy too technical for me,,, I'm a stick the mic in the horn type person LOL

blizz

UV, The tone-arm I show in the above photos actually has four buttons, I've had it apart for rebuild. Perhaps there was more than one version?
Interestingly, the first page of the patent refers to the system as a Sound Amplifier. See paragraph 70 of the page below. Cheers, Russie

I have a two button, along with a very early Telemegaphone outfit and a really interesting four button version which is directly driven by the stylus bar. The four button unit uses heavy, oversized button assemblies which are designed to really dissipate heat. Do they ever get hot! The fidelity is not as good as that of the Sonora based design. The rubber gaskets and air column provided some inherent damping which is utterly absent in the directly driven unit.