The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I also vote for separate C and H reproducers due to "too much potentially damaging stuff too close to the cylinder" with the K. This is my main reason for never purchasing a combination reproducer for the small carriage eye, cost being second.

This may be blasphemy gentlemen but, I use a brass H and NEVER CHANGE IT!!!!! I have Never seen the SLIGHTEST amount of damage to my wax records (or ANY others for that matter) by using an H on them. The only noticeable difference is a slight reduction of volume on the 2M wax. I've been using an H Reproducer this way for over 35 years of being in the hobby ( for 46). Does anyone, esp.
reproducer repairmen, take issue with this? I'm not looking for trouble, I just paid attention to the old timers I hung around as a kid.....Langkamerer, Neuman Miller, Tom Chandler, etc. who grew up having to economize, and did this out of necessity in early years, and (for me) laziness now.
I deal in an awful lot of recuds, play grade them all, and have Never had ONE returned because it was damaged, even the 3 figure ones.
Stephen (tubehawker)

Also, it should be mentioned that all three of these reproducers have sapphire styli and are meant to play wax records, not Blue Amberols. yes, you can get away with playing a BA with an H or K reproducer, but if you play a lot, it will cause rapid wear of your sapphire stylus. BA records were meant to be played with diamond styli, such as on an Amberola or Opera machine.

tuberecuds wrote:This may be blasphemy gentlemen but, I use a brass H and NEVER CHANGE IT!!!!! I have Never seen the SLIGHTEST amount of damage to my wax records (or ANY others for that matter) by using an H on them. The only noticeable difference is a slight reduction of volume on the 2M wax. I've been using an H Reproducer this way for over 35 years of being in the hobby ( for 46). Does anyone, esp.
reproducer repairmen, take issue with this? I'm not looking for trouble, I just paid attention to the old timers I hung around as a kid.....Langkamerer, Neuman Miller, Tom Chandler, etc. who grew up having to economize, and did this out of necessity in early years, and (for me) laziness now.
I deal in an awful lot of recuds, play grade them all, and have Never had ONE returned because it was damaged, even the 3 figure ones.
Stephen (tubehawker)

I'm not looking for trouble either. Bottom line: they're your records; you can do what you please with them.

That said, perhaps paying attention to the REAL old-timers such as Peter Weber, Jonas Aylesworth, Walter Miller, and others might be more prudent. Those guys believed that the different types of records they were developing needed different types of reproducers. Speaking only for myself, I'm not qualified to argue with them.

I'm as lazy as the next guy, but if I was noting a loss of volume from 2m wax records due to my habits, I'd take a little extra effort for the hobby that means so much to me. Again, I stress that's only my opinion and I don't intend to impose it on others.

There's an old lady in our town who lives in the house where she was born and grew up (never married). Her grandfather built the place in 1897, and it's a beautiful, large Eastlake home with a wraparound porch. She's in her nineties now and lives there alone except for her live-in aide. She has no family left, and money is not (nor never has been) in short supply. However, the once-beautiful house is showing definite signs of disrepair. If the front porch is not seen to soon, it will require a complete rebuild. The old lady has told at least one of our village officials that she doesn't care what happens to the house. After all, she'll be dead, so why should it matter to her?

There's a parallel here.

I must stress that I would fight for anyone's right to use their personal property as they see fit. At the same time, I would respectfully offer a differing school of thought that's rooted in the belief that preservation can benefit untold numbers of the yet-unborn. I'm grateful to those who over the past century preserved what I value, and I intend to follow their example. It's bigger than just me.

Once more - the foregoing is only my own philosophy, and unlike much of our popular culture, I respect various opinions even though I may disagree.

Best to all,
George P.

I can state that I have painfully personal knowledge that a Model H will kill a nice brown wax recording. In times past I've cheated using a Model C on brown wax, but one day I accidentally used the H and saw it kicking up swarf. (It was an 8 on the Nauck's scale and now it's a 5.) These days I really try to use what I'm supposed to on a particular record. I'm sure that Stephen wasn't advocating using a model H on brown wax, but just how much harder is the Gold Moulded wax? I'm sure it's doing something.

It's my feeling that the Model H really isn't too nice to the record that it was intended for (the wax Amberol). After all, how many worn wax Amberols do you find with somewhat high signal to noise compared to the Blue Amberol pressings from the same molds? There's a reason that the Edison people brought out the Diamond reproducers and the Blue Amberols as soon as they did.

My bottom line: use the intended stylus for the record and even then: be careful.

Regards,
Martin