My latest tool for playing cylinders

[WDC]

I am really delighted how the experimental work of the last three has turned out. This weekend was absolutely great. I just got my brand new electric cylinder player and have been using it all day. It features all I need and does work with all standard cylinders, including longer 3-minute and dictation cylinders. The arm can be moved backwards to use an adapter for concert cylinders too.

The transmission allows to set anything between 40-210 rpm at a steady speed. Just for fun, I connected it with the 1938 radio in the living room and it came out quite clear. The previous player I had did work but always had to be re-adjusted because the plastic base would not allow the top assembly to stay in place. The passive tracking tone arm was very delicate to construct. The wire is silver-shielded with a teflon-coating. Once a S-shape is there, the tracking works fluently and I don't have to worry about different groove threads and shrunken celluloid cylinders.

[phonophan79]

Great job, very neat! Thanks for sharing... please YouTube this if you can!

[Schmaltz]

This has me intrigued!

In the back of my mind I had thought about how to make an electric cylinder player with a Stanton cartridge mount, maybe deconstructing a linear tracking turntable for its arm and movement mechanism. Whatever I might have managed to cobble together wouldn't be as elegant as what you've got going there! Bravo!

[barnettrp21122]

Can you provide details about the maker, cost, etc? You refer to previous models, but this is the first I've heard of this! Thanks.
Bob B.

[Aaron]

Can you provide details about the maker, cost, etc? You refer to previous models, but this is the first I've heard of this! Thanks.
Bob B.

Yes Norm! Please provide us with more details! I would love one of these if possible!

Aaron

[richardh]

Norman,

That really is looking good and from what you say works a treat. Looks like all your hard work and experimentation has paid off. I agree with the others - if you were able to do a youtube demonstration that would be really great.

RJ

[MordEth]

Norman,

I think you’re getting enough peer pressure for a YouTube demonstration of this machine from everyone else, but if and when you get a chance to put up a video so we can hear and see it in action, I’d be quite interested in checking it out. I’d always wondered how one digitized cylinders; I’d generally thought that it was done by using microphones with a vintage machine; I didn’t realize that anyone had come up with a modern device to produce transfers.

Thanks for sharing this with us.

— MordEth

[richardh]

Norman,

just out of interest how well does it cope with out-of-roud BA's?

RJ

[WDC]

At first, Thank you all for your attention - a truly appreciate it. Several months ago I had posted a picture of one my earlier players which had a shorter mandrel and required an end gate because of the relatively soft PVC base plate. That's why no. 3 required a end support of the mandrel:



Another one that is predating the one above is deposited at a friend's house in New Jersey to be used when I am there. And this is simply for backup purposes now in case something should happen to my latest one. These early developments worked OK but required a good portion of attention such as repositioning of the pulleys after every few transfers, and re-calibrating of the playback speed which changed when one pulleys had moved while being steady during playback. All these problems are now history - gladly!

The basic design has not changed much but several necessary details were implemented over the whole generation of four players.

The machine is completely custom made and was realized by Matthias Menz who is a good friend of mine. We discussed certain designs over countless hours and this is what came out of it. The cost of material and the manufacture of the custom parts was not very cheap and did cost several hundred Euros actually. But therefore, it is has a industrial quality. We are currently thinking of issuing a very small series of a player like this one, maybe with a few changes again.

My Nikon makes brilliant pictures but no videos and I will have to borrow one. I hope to make a little video over the weekend and will post it then ASAP.

Btw. I never seriously digitized any cylinder by using a microphone. Before that I used one of the ACT reproducers that Peter Liebert and Rob Lomas used to sell. They worked (and do work) pretty well but the spring motor was always the bottle neck of quality.

The tracking of wobbling Blue Amberols does work very well and sometimes surprises me too. I have one that is badly out of round but tracks perfectly on the player at full speed.

There will be soon a more detailed description on Christer Hamp's Phonograph Makers' Pages, hopefully by tomorrow. I will post a link as soon as it is ready.

[WDC]

Well, that went fast, here's the article on Christer's website:

http://www.christerhamp.se/phono/bruderhofer2.html