The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

There were only eight titles (16 sides) put out on the 10 inch Edison LPs. And only six titles were put out on 12 inch LPs, according to Tim Gracyk's book "Edison Diamond Disc Re-Creations". I have the complete set of eight 10 inch LPs. They are in near-mint condition and I would NEVER EVEN REMOTELY consider playing them on an Edison LP player. The records are quite scarce to find today, especially in non-ground-up condition. The Edison LP player was simply not up to the task of playing this exceedingly fine groove pitch without inflicting damage to the record. The records are cut at a pitch of 450 lines per inch (LPI) which is extremely fine even by modern vinyl LP standards. Which made them very difficult to manufacture without damaged grooves. The likelihood that you would ever be able to play one entire side of an LP on an Edison player without groove skipping or sticking today is just about nil. And once the heavy Edison stylus jumps the groove wall, you've probably permanently damaged the record. I would advise against it. I guess if you have an othewise junk record that you'd like to play with, you wouldn't risk much by trying to play it on an Edison player. But I would advise that if you want to hear what's on an Edison LP that you play it on a modern player with light tracking force. Even that's not easy to do without carefully setting the anti-skate force to allow tracking without groove skipping. Assuming that the record is not damaged. Anyway, the music is mundane and completely forgettable and the sound is noisy and unsatisfying. So the Edison LPs are best treated as interesting engineering curiosities and just put up for display, in my opinion.

I've posted the Edison Long-play sample record in the Music category for those interested:

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... =3&t=12280

Gregbogantz, I hear you. I have not only a Rek-o-cut turntable but a conventional 1960s turntable that is cross-wired and I'll be able to play my Edison Long Play records on those for the most part. Still, I'm moving ahead with the LP conversion kit (for my S-19) for a couple reasons. First, it can only help the value of the machine. Second, I just have to see for myself. It's like being told by a wise indvidual that you shouldn't touch your tongue to a frozen steel pipe outdoors in the middle of winter. Hey, just gotta try it now!

Others don't seem to testify that every last playing of an Edison LP on a DD machine is a guaranteed disaster. "Tim W-W" (above) says that he sits down to play his "frequently." I promose to start out playing only the worst records I'm able to find. If my set-up proves stable I might move on to nicer copies. Doesn't sound, though, like I should invest in pristine copies if the only purpose is to display them. I'm one of those collectors who is content with V- records; if I luck into better stuff, so be it.

Ralph

P.S. I got over my fearsome nature when I started collecing and playing wax Amberols.

i have 2 edison lp's on my youtube channel if anyone has a digital version of their edison lp let me know
you can find my yt page under the name of tino van der zwan

i have a sound archive of 200,000 mp3s with recordings from 1878 to 2013
im interested in early sound from both discs and cylinder
if any of you can help me enlarge my archive than you can mail me at
[email protected]

you can also ask me for sound files if i have it ill mail it to you

greetings
tino