The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I also think the two most likely causes of echo when playing any cylinder are: 1) a worn diamond, or 2) a weight that has stiff lateral movement. The screw the weight pivots on can be loosened if necessary.

I think trying to feel the tip of a diamond with your finger to gauge wear is too imprecise to be meaningful. There are different degrees of wear. Even if the reproducer does not yet skip from wear, it is worthwhile knowing if you are playing nice records with a very worn stylus. If the the diamond is chipped or broken, then yes, you may feel a sharp edge, but if the diamond has only a flat spot from wear, you won't feel that or determine just how worn it really is.

I have collected Edisons for nearly 50 years and for most of that time I have evaluated diamond styli by examination under a microscope having between 50-100x power. With some microscopes it is possible to examine the stylus without removing it from the reproducer. A perfect tip should look rounded like a hemisphere and not have a flat spot on it.

I too have several cylinders that echo on my Amberola 30, the rest play fine. My very amateurish theory is that the celluloid has shrunken on some of them and the grooves are now slightly smaller.

Chinacat wrote:I too have several cylinders that echo on my Amberola 30, the rest play fine. My very amateurish theory is that the celluloid has shrunken on some of them and the grooves are now slightly smaller.

I have a few echoing cylinders that coincidently have very shallow grooves as if the mold did not fully impress the celluloid blank.