Anyone know what this is?

[USlakeside]

Could it have been about the records? Maybe playing four competitor brands at once to demonstrate how the "their brand" was the loudest, clearest, etc, by playing them back to back in quick succession on the same machine?

[FloridaClay]

As the turntables all share the same tone arm, only one horn would be necessary. Interesting indeed. Maybe something to facilitate playing dance music by an early DJ? No wait between songs.

Clay

[m0xiemama]

That is what I was thinking Clay. An early DJ set up.

[phonogfp]

But a DJ setup requires only two turntables. Why four?

The photo is hard to make out in detail, but it's possible that the tone arm has an advancing device, allowing all 4 records to be played with no intervention from an operator. If that's the case, this device makes more sense.

George P.

[Lenoirstreetguy]

This is interesting, and I would love to know what it is. It has a British/European look about it somehow.... I have seen the wear test set-up at HMV in the 30's where they had four tone arms per turntable, but never four turntables per tone arm.

Jim

[Silvertone]

I knew that I had seen this somewhere before. I saved the photos, but don't recall exactly were I got them. There was a small thread about it on a different forum.

http://www.phonoland.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1959

And a juke box site said this: "One of the rare automatic phonographs of the intermediate phase between the acoustic era and the electric era was known as the Daily Automatic Phonograph constructed and patented by William H. Daily in Chicago in the mid twenties. The Daily phonograph, having a square three-window cabinet and four turntables and a tone arm from the center, was short lived like many other constructions due to the fact, that only four successive plays were not enough for the patrons."

[phonogfp]

Thanks for solving this mystery!

George P.

[estott]

I still wonder where the horn is in the first example.