RCA Orthophonic - high fidelity

[richardh]

I came across this RCA machine, and whilst it is a later vintage than what we usually disucss...its such a nice looking one I thought id post a link to it. Looks like the phono, radio and reel to reel tape recorder is in one cabinet and the second cabinet is just the speaker unit. Wonder what this one would sound like?

RJ

Cool RCA High Fidelity phonograph

[gregbogantz]

That's a pretty neat find, there, Richard. At first glance, I thought it must be stereo since it has two cabinets. This use of two cabinets was fairly common practice in the early console stereo sets (radiograms) sold in the USA around 1960. But this unit shows no "stereophonic" verbiage anywhere on it, so it's apparently a high-end mono unit. If it is indeed from 1956 (which seems likely), it would probably still be mono since the stereo LP didn't come out here until 1958, although stereo tape was available a few years earlier than that. The tape deck especially intrigues me. I've never seen anything like it in a consumer audio console product. I would guess that it was made by either Brush or Magnecord (both of which usually made tape machines for commercial and industrial use during the early 1950s), judging from its appearance. RCA later included tape decks in their stereo consoles that were made by Voice of Music (VM), but I've never seen anything so early as this one in an RCA product.

During the 1950s, RCA marketed a line of genuine hifi quality products, as did GE. These were not sold in large numbers and are somewhat hard to find today. These products had much of their design contributed by the research laboratory at Princeton, New Jersey and by the Broadcast Equipment division at Camden. Dr. Harry F. Olsen at Princeton was responsible for several important developments in microphone and loudspeaker technology in the post-WWII period up into the 1950s. Olsen is widely recognized for the development of the LC-1 series of studio monitor loudspeakers which are easily recognized by the several small pointed inverted cones (snidely referred to as "A-cups" ) glued onto the front of the large woofer cone, said to improve dispersion and reduce cone breakup distortion. The unusual appearance of this speaker earned it the designation of the "titty-cone" speaker among audio professionals.

This console probably represents about the end of that product cycle at RCA. I'm guessing that it has a fairly decent power amplifier (probably on a separate chassis) with 20 to 30 watts of audio output. And the speaker cabinet probably contains at least a 2-way and probably a 3-way speaker array which might contain some of Olsen's speaker ideas. This was probably a pretty good sounding unit for its day, and it would still be impressive today. I would guess that this is quite a rare piece, especially in such good condition. The quality of US-made consoles deteriorated rapidly from this point on with probably the notable exception of the Magnavox designs which continued to be excellent into the 1970s.

[richardh]

Greg,

thanks for all that great information.... it certainly is a fabulous machine and it is interesting to know some of the technology development behind it. There is one thing that facinates me and that is the far left control on the radio dial show in this picture:

Interesting picture

I can only just make out what is written around the dial but is this a selector for different equilisation curves? Thats what it looks like to me. For a 1950's machine this really must be a top end machine to have that kind of gizmo?

Its pricy, but I sure hope this machine finds a good home.

RJ

[Viva-Tonal]

What little I could see of the changer looks like a V-M, but the tape machine is definitely an OEM Magnecord. The mike looks like an OEM Shure.

[gregbogantz]

Yes, Richard, that switch that you ask about is indeed a phono equalization selector switch. As you have said, such switches were usually found only on quality hifi amplifiers of the day, usually on the "component" type of equipment and not often seen on consoles. I've been told by a friend of mine that this tape deck is a Magnecord PT-6. This deck was usually seen in radio stations and recording studios and rarely sold to the general consumer public. Just another indication that this console was probably top-of-the-line for 1956.

RCA had a long and varied association with both Crescent and VM, as well as with a few other vendors such as Oak and Milwaukee for the supply of their record changers and tape decks in the years after WWII. The RCA changers seen in the late 1950s and early 60s were variants of the VM 900 and 1200 series. RCA had their own record changer manufacturing to begin with and probably had a license to make these VM clones, but they gradually phased out their own changer making and bought changers OEM from other vendors. Interestingly, the ubiquitous little 45rpm changer, the RP-190, was made by RCA, but it became so popular that both Crescent and VM built clones of it. In fact, I can't corroborate this but I would bet that the design was actually originated by Crescent as it owes a lot to the earlier Crescent 78rpm player designs which are easily recognized by their eccentric, rubber-tired cycling cam.

[gregbogantz]

And speaking of top-end radio/phono consoles, check out this RCA D-22:

eBay Item #180360341216

This was the top dog RCA of 1936. It was an attempt to compete with the E.H. Scott hifi radios such as the Allwave 23 which were the absolute top end sets of the day. Like the AW-23, the D-22 had four 2A3 output triodes in push-pull-parallel for an output power of about 25 - 30 watts. Monstrous for that time. And the D-22 was one of the very few consumer consoles to offer a dynamic volume expander circuit, also available on the AW-23.

The 1935 Scott really was the supreme instrument of its day, and it was genuinely hifi as it also offered a woofer-tweeter speaker setup with optional electrodynamic tweeters and crossover components. The D-22 has twin 12 inch speakers, but no tweeters. The AW-23 also offered continuously variable IF bandwidth to adjust the performance from high station selectivity lo-fi to hi-fidelity audio reproduction from AM radio reception. I don't believe that the D-22 offered adjustable IF bandwidth (I find that surprising for such a top end model), but other makers such as Philco and Zenith did. You may find it unbelievable that AM radio broadcasting could be considered hi-fidelity, but back in the 1930s with receivers such as the AW-23 with its IF bandwidth set to maximum, the audio frequency response from AM reception DID extend out to around 15kHz! Today, you'll never hear this kind of performance from commercial broadcasts, but you can rig your own local AM transmitter with wideband response and actually get this kind of hifi performance from a restored top-end radio like these models. I've done it. It's absolutely uncanny to hear such good quality audio coming from an AM radio!

This particular D-22, however, is missing its original "slinger" RCA record changer. It's the kind that throws the played record off the top of the turntable and into the spent record bin at the left side of the compartment. You can still see the slanted floor of the record bin in the pictures, but the changer is a more modern Webcor. The original changer also included the home recording feature that allowed recordings to be embossed in recording blanks that were provided with a silent groove which guided the stylus during recording.

[richardh]

That really is an impressive looking machine Greg....it is a shame though that it doen't have the original record deck. It seems like they want a lot of money for it (particularly given it isn't all original) - a machine like this - even as high end as this one - surly can't command that kind of price...can it?

Bet that amp can sure kick out the music!

Interesting what you say about AM broadcasts. Must admit I always assumed that they only were capable of a limited frequency rnage for music / speech reproduction. But 15khz really isn't bad at all. Do you know why it is more limited today?

RJ

[estott]

I think one thing that made FM radio take off was putting it in cars. I used to drive the Pennsylvania Turnpike regularly with my parents and AM radio will cut out if you drive under a bridge or through a tunnel. FM won't. Once we got a car with FM radio we didn't look back.

[richardh]

On the AM / FM front....in the States when was FM first introduced on commecial sets.

RJ

[gregbogantz]

Richard, the reason that AM radio now has such limited audio response is due to the proliferation of radio stations. I'm not sure when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC - the governmental agency that authorizes and regulates radio service in the USA) standardized the station frequency allocations, but they set them such that they could be as close together as 10kHz spacing in the RF band. I believe in europe that this spacing is even closer, at 9kHz. In order for a radio to effectively separate radios stations that may be as close together on the dial as 10kHz, the intermediate frequency (IF) amplifier in superheterodyne receivers (the most typical circuit these days) needs to have a very narrow bandwidth. It's difficult to explain in simple terms (the RF sidebands around the carrier frequency are limited by this narrow response), but this also causes the audio bandwidth recovered from the demodulated carrier signal to have restricted bandwidth as well. Nearly all the AM radio receivers built in the last several decades have defaulted to using narrow-band IF tuning with no option to increase it by the user. This causes all AM radio reception on those receivers to have audio bandwidth limited to less than about 5kHz or so.

But back in the 1930s, there were several VERY strong AM radio transmissions available in the country, mostly situated in large cities such as New York. And there weren't any significantly powerful stations located close to them on the radio dial. So receivers could be tuned to wider IF bandwidth (on those sets which provided for this adjustment such as the E.H. Scotts) which reduced the receiver's ability to reject the adjacent radio stations (but this wasn't a problem with the few and weak adjacent signals) but which allowed much better recovered audio to be heard from the receiver. In fact, E.H. Scott himself was known to conduct long-distance listening sessions wherein he would use one of his hifi AM radios to listen to and demonstrate live operatic concerts broadcast from strong stations in New York which could be picked up in many locations all across the country with hifi audio quality. Today, the radio bands are just too full of RF signals to be able to get good wideband performance from broadcast AM signals, even if the broadcast was not limited in response by the station itself, which is now done to increase "penetrating power" - i.e., "punch-thru" at the expense of fidelity.

Commercial FM broadcasting in the USA began in the old 42 - 48 MHz band around 1940, but few people owned radios that could receive these broadcasts. Scott, Philco, Zenith, and others did make some of these sets. Interstingly, RCA did NOT make any of these sets. The reason is that David Sarnoff, the head of RCA didn't want to pay royalties to Armstrong for the FM patent rights (Sarnoff and Armstrong had a continuing feud over this for many years). Also, Sarnoff wanted to promote television service and the improved audio (which was FM, by the way ) that came with it over FM radio service. The commercial FM band was changed to the current 88 - 108 MHz band after WWII (to free up space for TV transmissions), but the service didn't really gain popularity in the USA until sometime in the 1960s. During this early period, music selection on FM was limited to classical repertoire, jazz, and "elevator music". Not too many listeners were interested. During the late 1960s after the introduction of stereo FM multiplex, popular and rock music was started to be broadcast on FM which brought in a whole new listenership, and the demise of AM as a music transmission medium was begun. These days in the USA, AM radio has very little music to be heard aside from some country stations. It's now mostly sports and political blustering.