Victrola horns

[streetmechanic14]

What was Victor's purpose in providing rigid support for their inside horns only at the throat (tone arm end) allowing the rest of the horn to "float", isolated from the cabinet? They were surprisingly consistent about this from 1906 until the Orthophonic re-entrant design made it impossible. If this was a patented feature what claims were made for it in the documentation?
-Dave

[MarkELynch]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for posting this question! The description and function of the internal horn supported at one end is described in this patent. John English applied for the patent in 1906, it was granted in 1910 and assigned to VTMCo.
See the first page, line reference 30.

Mark

[streetmechanic14]

Mark-
Thanks for the patent information. I suspected the floating horn was intended to "resonate" although I wonder if Mr. English realized the can of worms he was opening, at least from a modern perspective. Exactly what deficiency was he hoping to take care of with his resonance? The floating horn continued in use right up to the introduction of the Orthophonic; I remember (years ago) having a Victrola 107 of 1925 with a huge and heavy horn- I can only assume whatever resonances it had would have been very different from the horn shown in English's patent. Maybe at this remove in time it's just difficult to picture how empirical research worked- it can't be denied that given careful restoration and appropriate records these machines can make for pleasant listening.
It would be interesting to know what English made of the re-entrant Orthophonic horn and the lengths gone to in making it rigid and non-resonant.
-Dave

[OrthoFan]

PNG