Noooooo!!!!!!

[Valecnik]

What you saw on that video is a couple of men, well maybe a couple of big kids, demonstrating "acting out behaviours" of a common mental illness rampant in the UK. It is known as "Edison Envy". There is still no known treatment or cure.

Freud first coined the term "Edison Envy" in his book "The Ego and the Id" (1923). By 1920, many British audiophiles having grown increasingly frustrated by their inability to obtain sufficient quantities of high quality Edison products began to act out.

Their id, that is is the impulsive, child-like portion of their psyches that operates on the "pleasure principle" began causing them to act violently, only taking into account what they wanted and disregarding all consequences.

More serious outbreaks seemed to happen on a cycle roughly corresponding to new releases of Edison discs. During one of the worst outbreaks on the evening of Feb 11. 1927, Edison's 80th birthday, gramophone shops all over the UK were looted and burned. Casually figures were never fully released.

Later manifestations of the illness, though less violent, are often comical in thier result. Burning of domestic gramophones of course continues to this day. In addition, suffers, usually tanked up on gin or ale never stop trying to modify outdated gramophone designs in a vain attempt to produce a result resembling that which they were deprived of. One such attempt is pictured below.

[Steve]

Later manifestations of the illness, though less violent, are often comical in thier result. Burning of domestic gramophones of course continues to this day. In addition, suffers, usually tanked up on gin or ale never stop trying to modify outdated gramophone designs in a vain attempt to produce a result resembling that which they were deprived of. One such attempt is pictured below

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

[OrthoFan]

Hi Steve:

Glad to see you're still among the quick!

As noted above, I realize that these were cheaply made gramophones, but I also remember the Mastertone I had didn't sound half bad--not on par with a similarly sized Consolette, which had a far more expansive quality to the sound; but nonetheless, the Mastertone had a slightly better range--higher treble and a strong impression of bass. Also, the Garrard motor was in excellent condition, and only needed a good cleaning and re-lubrication. (It was the only motor I've owned that made virtually no noise!)

Still, I do remember I had to do quite a bit of tweaking. For instance, no seal was used between the tonearm and motor-board, or between the motor-board and the throat of the horn, so I installed some seals using felt gaskets coated with heavy grease. Also, the gramophone's metal horn, a coiled exponential type, though airtight, was rather flimsy. Originally, it was packed, all around, with long strands of shaved wood coated in wax (excelsior?). When I removed this, the horn buzzed right along with the music, so I had to re-pack it with foam rubber.

The sound box, itself, was simply stamped "Swiss made" and was similar in design to the type used on the Decca 50 portable. The aluminum diaphragm was suspended between burnt-red colored hollow tube gaskets, which were extremely soft. It actually sounded excellent when I tried it out on my Credenza, using an adapter. Not quite the sonic punch one gets with an Orthophonic sound box, but much better than the cheap 1940s sound boxes supplied for the Birch and RCA portables. Had the cabinet not warped, I would probably have kept it.

In any event, I was thinking about all of this as I watched the gramophone going "Hope-lessly" up in flames.

OF

[3victrolas]

Those two guys seemed to really enjoy burning that machine. Early last year I wanted to drag my Consolette out of the house & set it on fire. Instead, I sold it. To this day, I still believe that burning it would have been more personally satisfying than selling it. So, in a small way watching their machine burn I felt better about my Consolette.

[Steve]

Those two guys seemed to really enjoy burning that machine

Indeed they did. And they chose to do it on the one day I hadn't been invited down there to watch!

[hillndalefan]

I, too, was initially horrified at the gramophone carnage going on in the video, but I must appreciate their sense of odd humour [as they would spell it]---if I'm not wrong [it being a while since I last heard it], I think the record they played was a march by Abe Holzmann [of "Smoky Mokes" fame], called "Blaze Away". Bob Ault