Newbie questions.

[GimmieAGrama]

Hi all. I have just purchased my first gramophone, or phonograph, from what I gather they are one and the same. It is no antique, but rather a HMV reproduction of the wind up gramophone. I got out dad's vinyls and with child like excitement put House of the Rising Sun -Animals on. It slowly started spinning and with great anticipation I lowered the needle. When needle met vinyl I heard an assortment of high pitched noises and chipmunk like singing. Heck the thing seemed like it was on fast forward! Moving the slider that reduces the speed yielded no results and on closer inspection, the fibers (some sort of cork?) on where the speed changer makes contact with the other part to create friction and slow it down (that is me just guessing it works that way) was worn to a point that it wasn't actually touching anything when i adjusted the speed slider.

That probably makes little sense but I don't yet know what is what in the world of gramophones so hopefully you can bear with me. Perhaps if someone could point me to information on how the variable speed settings on such devices work. Or do you think it was just built for 78s?

I sincerely thank you for any assistance you can offer,

~AV

[Paal1994]

AV,

You can't play vinyl records on gramophones (either real or reproduction ones) they were only designed to play 78s. But you really shouldn't play records on a reproduction gramophone (or "Crap-O-Phones" as they also are called) at all as they are poorly made and damage records. The sound of a Crap-O-Phone is far from as good as on the real gramophones. But anyway, if you are going to play records on it remember to change the needle after every record side you play.

Paal.

[AZ*]

Is this a legitimate post by GimieAGrama? Or is this another attempt at silly stuff like the Sven big horns goofyness?

[MordEth]

Is this a legitimate post by GimieAGrama? Or is this another attempt at silly stuff like the Sven big horns goofyness?

AZ,

I’m not sure, but I’d rather err on the side of trying to help someone...

Hopefully Paal’s advice proves helpful; I thought he was quite informative.

— MordEth

[1926CredenzaOwner]

!

[JohnM]

The “Crap-O-Phone” claims yet another victim. Eric Burdon, we hardly knew ye!

I thought I was lying in a field of grass somewhere . . . . . !

[EdisonSquirrel]

Then there was the story of a guy who played his 1894 Berliner disc 100 times with the same steel needle....after the 100th play, he decided to call it quits in order to avoid excessive wear to the needle.



Rocky

[gramophoneshane]

It could be a genuine question. There's was a fellow on the Antique Radio Forum with quite a number of posts asking the same sort of question.
I guess a lot of younger folk from the CD/DVD generation simply don't know there are different types of records, and they're all just flat black discs to them.

http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/vie ... p?t=110366

[Odeon]

I guess a lot of younger folk from the CD/DVD generation simply don't know there are different types of records, and they're all just flat black discs to them.

I once worked here in germany in a radio museum, I also made guidance with
kids and school classes. Most kids below 10 years didn´t figure out the difference between an old radio and a TV set !!!!

I told them long and at the length that their grandparents sat before the
radio, tune in and only listen.
Then I turned on a old radio (one of the kinds with the dials below and the loudspeaker above) - OK, sound....... mostly it was only a matter of a few seconds before the first question "And, there is the picture?"
Many of the kids can´t image that you sat down together, only to listen to something......

Another (and better) experience was than I told the kids about the history of sound recording (ok, they don´t understand the difference between a edison phonograph and a disc grammophone - maybe I expected too much..

With recordings I could work more haptic. First I led a kid hold a needle in the grooves of a spining disc - hey there is a little vibration !
Then we stick the needle through the corner of a paper and hold it again in the grooves - hey, I can hear something!
At least we folded a cone with the paper, stuck again the needle through and hold it again in the grooves - hey, it is much more louder!

The kids at least understood that the sound is with the record/disc NOT in the apparat....
I wonder that the today generation mp3/I-pod is thinking in 20 years how sound is/was recorded....... to declare them that the sound wasn´t all the time in the apparat maybe a little catchy venture

[Valecnik]

My kids are 5 almost 5 and three. I'm very happy that even at this age if they see a gramophone on TV or on a billboard etcertera they point it out and they know it makes music. I hope that someday when Odeon or one of his colleagues is giving a tour, that one of my kids could help explain how it works.

My daughter knows "what it does" but still does not understand "how it does it" though. What makes it turn etcetera. I need to give her another year or two for that I guess...