Best Sounding and Looking upright 78 player

[danohallaron]

I have a good collection of vintage rock n roll, country, blues and such on 78's. But I only have room for one floor model amidst the ever-growing Triumph collection. My VV-XI has performed admirably but I'm looking to upgrade. The VV is a workhorse and has decent sound, but it excites me about as much as my Amberola. And no offense to Amberolas, because mine is always ready and never skips a beat. Within reason, so probably not circassian walnut, if you had room for only one 78 player what would it be?

[PeterF]

Victor Victrola VE8-9, with a reproducer rebuilt by Wyatt Marcus.

- big metal orthophonic horn. Best frequency response - at the top and bottom ends.

- compact, attractive case. Even has a little bit of record storage.

- electric motor. Winding sucks.

- can play both acoustic and electric recordings satisfactorily. Your XI can’t. A victrola #4 on it would help, but is a compromise.

By the way, let’s not disrespect Amberolas; even an Amberola 30 is a better performer acoustically than the XI, assuming that both have properly rebuilt reproducers.

[JerryVan]

I'll second the choice of an Orthophonic 8-9. The electric motor version however is a real rarity. No matter, as I DO like cranking

[AmberolaAndy]

I’m happy with my VE 8-30, But a VE 8-35 would be very nice too.

[Jim_Cannon]

The sound out of my orthophonic 8-30 is AMAZING and much better than you will hear from your VV-XI. (I have a VV-XVII, which i can compare to.) You can't go wrong with an 8-30. Mine is electric, which is convenient, but crank is also fun.

Start looking for an 8-30 in good original condition. I looked for several years and eventually found one about 120 miles from my home. They are out there.

Good luck!

[danohallaron]

By the way, let’s not disrespect Amberolas; even an Amberola 30 is a better performer acoustically than the XI, assuming that both have properly rebuilt reproducers.

Yep, I agree on Amberolas. And really, no disrespect. It is a very dependable machine, which is not something I can say for many of mine. And I totally agree it sounds better than an XI. An Amberola was one of my first machines. I restored it lovingly and would not part with it.

Thanks kindly for your input.

[danohallaron]

Thank you all. I am on the hunt for an orthophonic 8-9. I'm totally a wind-up guy, other than my Sansui/klipsch setup for 33's.

As far as Wyatt goes, I just received back a Model O from him that received the repro housing and tuneup. As I just told him, it is amazing.

[epigramophone]

In the UK many collectors would say that the choice is between the external horn EMG/Expert (better sound) and the Re-Entrant HMV (conventional looking) but some people want the best of both, hence this HMV repurposed with an EMG horn assembly.

[OrthoFan]

Definitely you'll want an orthophonic victrola, or one designed specifically to play electrically recorded 78s.

In addition to the VV-8-35, the large Columbia 800 series Viva-Tonal models, or the large acoustic Panotropes by Brunswick are very attractive--all have more of an art deco style in their cabinetry and do a tremendous job playing electrically recorded records.

OrthoFan

[drh]

I'm going to catch for this, but, if what you have is rock 'n' roll and country and blues of like vintage (or, for that matter, from the middle or late '30s on), my answer would be: none. Get a good modern, light tracking turntable with 78 speed (for records of that vintage, you can probably do without much pitch control), a good magnetic cartridge, and a good set of various stylus sizes and play the records electronically through a flexible preamp that can select between a wide range of equalization curves (*not* one that just has a one-size-kinda/sorta-fits-all "78" setting). RnR records in particular came long after acoustic playback was a thing only for portables at picnics. Upright acoustic machines are great fun for earlier records, but I would (in fact, I do) refrain from playing later ones on them. For that matter, I generally don't play any lateral record acoustically except as a matter of a "special occasion" or if it is what a friend called a "steel needle record"--a common issue in decent but not pristine condition. Now, if you're talking about records in *that* category, the advice above about machines designed for electric recordings is good. (Vertical cut is a different matter--but vertical cut records mostly were made to be played with jeweled styli, which are less harsh on the record, and in my experience such records, in contrast to laterals, tend to sound better on the machines that were made to play them than on modern gear.)

As to Amberolas, I have an Amberola 75 that I bought through the Yankee Trader on the theory it would serve as a cylinder cabinet that happened to play records. And so it more or less was until I had Wyatt rebuild the reproducer. His magic unlocked the really excellent performance this relatively humble "late model Edison cylinder machine," poor stepchild of the mighty Amberola I, is capable of providing, to the extent it's become something of a "daily driver" for me. From something I saw in the Edison Phonograph Monthly, I have the impression Edison, recognizing that even the cheapest diamond disc machines were relatively expensive, produced the 30/50/75 Amberolas at least in part to give his dealers something to promote at a price point competitive with Victor's lower end machines--the 75 against the XI, the 50 against tabletop VV IX, the 30 against the VV IV/VI. It's not surprising, then, that Edison would come up with something that sounded better than the corresponding Victors, especially considering that selling these machines required convincing the customer to go with cylinders, hardly a format in favor by that time.

And oh, by the way, the Amberola 75's mechanism is the quietest cylinder machine motor that I've ever encountered.