Do Victors have noisier motors?

[larryh]

Just reading the post on the Columbia art type case machine and wondered if others have found that Victor for all its popularity seems to have a problem with the motors being noisy in operation. I have owned very few Victors that the whirring sound of operation isn't present on when starting the turntable. My Brunswicks are so quite I can't tell if they are running or not. I have had many others as well and they often were silent in comparison. Does Victor have a quality problem in its motors?

[FellowCollector]

Larry, When comparing motors, say Victor versus Brunswick, it's important to compare equal vintage. The early Victor machines such that the A, B, C, D, E were prone to somewhat noisy motors. Just one listen to my Victor D playing in several of my MusicBoxBoy videos on YouTube is pretty convincing evidence that many of the early Victors were prone to motor noise. However, by the time the later roman numeral series Victors arrived the motors were improved substantially and, as evidenced by those in my collection, are much quieter. The Brunswicks, being a later production machine benefited from the technology (good and bad) of their competition. The later Victrolas had a very quiet motor. But...having said that, I would absolutely agree with you that the Brunswicks had probably the quietest running motors ever. I own a Brunswick Cortez that runs silently - and I do mean silently. My hearing is excellent and when I place my head down inside the cabinet I cannot hear the running motor. Very impressive indeed for a series of gears and springs and weights to exhibit such near perfection in motion. The later Edisons and Victors weren't quite there but, in my opinion, many came very close to silent running. Most Credenzas have extremely quiet motors and that impressive particularly for a beefy 4-spring motor.

Doug

[larryh]

Actually I really had the Credenza also in mind as I recently sold mine, but I had had it professionally rebuilt twice and yet the motor always had a rumble to the sound when you started the turn table, I don't know why, but it was a situation I encountered with a number of machines of victors including a 400 I purchased early in my collecting, it always had that noisy governor type sound.

[gramophoneshane]

I've always thought Victor/HMV motors were pretty middle of road where noise was concerned.Even the winding rachets are noisier than alot of other brands.
My Brunswick is also silent, as are many of the Garrard motors I've own. Even some of the bigger, better quality motors put out by Thorens & Paillard can be hard to hear running.