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Yes, that was great fun. Ian lagged the conduit to attenuate the resonance of a thin steel tube and the result was superb as you can hear. The relevant conduit in an EMG is made from cast aluminium and therefore pretty non-resonant.

I actually have one of these in my project queue, right here in USA. I picked it up with an incorrect horn and broken spring. The cabinet suffers from woodworm rot in a few spots.

I replaced all 4 springs and nickel plated the arm, horn elbow, and other bits. That's where it sits until I can get back on it.

My plans for it include a cabinet redo, decal, a 5B with correct rubber isolator and a screen under the front cover like a Victor portable, a wrap around graduated conduit inside the cabinet to replace the short link between arm and horn that will map out to about a 9 foot total distance for a more Orthophonic sound, and one of Eduardo's oak speartip horns with HMV decal. The conduit will be constructed such that it can be removed and the original link tube bolted right up with no mods to the machine. It had the original brass HMV No 4 as well.

With the 4 spring motor and the horn offset to the other side of the cabinet I think this would make an exceptional "DJ" setup. Knowing me I'll finish it up, play with it a little, then move it on.

PM me if you think you might be interested.

PM sent

I hear them often, since I've owned 2 of them for the past 15 years or so - an oak one with with black horn & a mahogany one w/ red horn (as seen on my avatar). I agree with Carlos' comments. They sound quite good -- great on acoustic recordings and not bad on electricals, although the large saxophone horn machines like the HMV 192 sound even better. OrthoFan included a photo of the conduit on the 31 a. I've attached a photo of my oak HMV 32 and the conduit on one of them.

Oh, I will. In a completely foolhardy move, I have procured an HMV 5a soundbox from England, to be retrofitted with the smaller isolator/ring assembly so it will fit the tonearm one of these 109s. For the other, I already have a rebuilt/restored brass HMV No 4. I should be able to play just about anything.

Hello Steve, nice to hear from you again!

You have no less experience than I have, so you surely know that most gramophones play at their best with the records and soundbox for which their horn was "engineered" (= ear-tuned in most cases, especially for earlier machines). Acoustic-era machines plays exceptionally well acoustic records, but perform well only with some electrically recorded records (as a side note, I still have to understand why some electrically recorded records sound wonderfully on acoustic-era machines, and others only so and so).

You might try to temporarily install (for example with electrical tape) a different soundbox on your BIs and see if the sound improves or not. I'ts a trial-and-error process.

I accidentally made the reverse-test lately with a Decca Salon 130, a remarkable orthophonic machine that for one reason or another came to me with a wrong mica-diaphragm soundbox. The machine sounded awfully, but as soon as I equipped it with a period-correct aluminium soundbox it transformed into one of the best sounding machines that I own. As I also have mica-diaphragm machines that sounds wonderfully, what I understood is that the most important thing is that the soundbox and the horn match each other (either because they were carefully engineered, or by mere chance).



I frankly discourage you to do so. Average people understand nothing about sound quality and music in general, you'll possibly be the only one in the room hearing any difference. Your two BIs are a marvel to look at and almost no other gramophone (all times, all makes) will match them in terms of visual quality. I believe your shows will be deprived if you switch to lesser-looking machines.

Hi Marco, hope you are well ... it's been a long time!
Thank you for the good points above. It makes a lot of sense, and I'll likely follow your advice. Actually I've managed to sell enough stuff ("junk" per the wife) that I don't use very much (photo and music gear, my beloved vintage Vespa) that I happily no longer need to sell my BIs. I think for wedding cocktail hours etc. I'll stick with the BIs. For swing dance events where people are really dancing up a storm and looking for a bit more bass and oomph in general (while still keeping the charm of original records and gear) I'll go with the HMV 32/102 setup. Can't wait!

So I was able to arrange the purchase of this 31A ... it's now sitting here in my dining room. Sounds pretty good. It doesn't sound as nice as I had hoped. Really doesn't approach the richness of my 102s ... seems to be just tons of mid-range, no real depth that I can discern. It sounds slightly better than my 1909 Columbia BI. I have NOT opened it up yet and examined the conduit. maybe something is leaking, I don't know. Maybe that's just how it will be. I don't have anything else to compare it to.

The Victor soundbox it came with seems to be stable (although it looks like a tick about to pop) but the angle looks off, and you can kind of see that in the sellers pics ... it's too upright. Weird. It SHOULD have the exact same angle as my 5Bs, right? Anyway, it's scaring me, so the machine now wears a 5B.

The horn is currently being stripped of it's terrible brushed-on paint job, which had been described as "original finish." Ugh.

I don't know if other Colonial models are like this, but this one is very rough and tumble in it's craftsmanship. Which is ok. I don't really like fancy ... I like useful. But it's REALLY plain-jane, to almost a mournful degree. Kinda like a tool box or something a 12 year old would build in woodshop class. She won't be winning any beauty pageants. The autobrake is REALLY stout and unstoppable, though ... it's probably my favorite part of the machine.

Anyway, I'll have to take some pics and videos and start a new thread, because (as I told gramophone-georg) this is a pretty big event in my life but I wanted to put a sort of bookend on this thread first.

Yes, sorry our deal didn't pan out on the 32 due to life happening on my end and me not remembering how much woodworm rot the cabinet actually had.

There are a few things you can do to improve the sound:

1. Longer conduit- there's plenty of room in that cabinet to create a gradually tapered conduit that's 4 feet long or so.
2. Take the front off your 5B and make a filter to cut down the needle cross- talk from the outside of your reproducer diaphragm- like a Victor portable has.

3. As you already stated- make sure everything is sealed, starting with some Vaseline at the soundbox mounting point. Any moving junction should be sealed with grease.

It's all good, sir! I'm too weak to be hoisting around a 4-spring machine anyway! Thanks for the tips ... yeah, I'm pretty sure we got lots o' leaks going on.