The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I'm so glad you posted these photos! I've always wanted to see one of these in person. Such a nice cabinet. I'm interested in how the horn works, but then again I remember it took me a while to wrap my mind around the pathway of the standard credenza horn the first time I encountered one. I wonder what a cross section would look like? Does it just go downward in the "saxophone" shape and then upward through the louvers? It probably sounds good. I tend to like the sound of Silvertone truphonics, Brunswick Panatropes, Columbia Viva-Tonals. I think they have good clarity and volume. Victor may have the widest frequency range, but sometimes it seems like it almost breaks even with the more diffused sound and the increased surface noise from the sandbox when the lid is open. For the Sears customer, this was probably a very good buy. Nice to see one so clean.

Jwb88 wrote:I'm so glad you posted these photos! I've always wanted to see one of these in person. Such a nice cabinet. I'm interested in how the horn works, but then again I remember it took me a while to wrap my mind around the pathway of the standard credenza horn the first time I encountered one. I wonder what a cross section would look like? Does it just go downward in the "saxophone" shape and then upward through the louvers? It probably sounds good. I tend to like the sound of Silvertone truphonics, Brunswick Panatropes, Columbia Viva-Tonals. I think they have good clarity and volume. Victor may have the widest frequency range, but sometimes it seems like it almost breaks even with the more diffused sound and the increased surface noise from the sandbox when the lid is open. For the Sears customer, this was probably a very good buy. Nice to see one so clean.

I'm glad you enjoyed the photos, it's quite a piece in person. As we both know I'm not cutting the horn into cross section pieces but if any magic happens it happens in the box that the iron part goes into. it comes out on the front as a narrow opening only a couple inches high but the width of the center section. I manually spun a record on the turntable because I'm having difficulty with the motor. The sound was much better than I expected. I do however agree with you about the Victors sound. I can't wait to be able to put on a record and step back for observation and decision confirmation. Either way, it's beautiful, I will love it and most of all it's NOT a bar.

I wonder if there is some Columbia input to the Sears Machines. The rather unusual lay out of the metal and wood parts sort of follows some of the Columbia ideas? Would be interesting to know who produced machines for Sears? Someone probably knows. I know on the smaller earlier machines they claimed in the catalog that even the smaller machines had the same quality motor in them. Something that many didn't do. I owned a table model for a while and it had probably the best sound of any smaller machine I ever owned from that period.

In the 1900s and 1910s many of the Sears machines were Columbia or Sears branded Columbia. Not sure about their 1920s and orthophonic machines? Does anyone know?

Andreas

CMac1974 wrote:Just wanted to share the progress on my Silvertone Imperial machine. Just need to get the motor up and running and we'll be good as new. As I reassembled the pieces today.

Many thanks for posting the photo showing the horn! From what I can tell, the tapered louvers were put in place to constrict the flare of the horn, at it's mouth, while ensuring that the overall size of the mouth was as large as possible. While this did nothing to increase the overall length of the horn, it did make its taper more gradual, probably adding some force to the mid-range, and what bass would make it's way to the horn's mouth.

It's interesting to note that various horn designs were used for the Tru-Phonic models. The model profiled in this post string -- http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... 4&start=30 -- shows that an entirely different approach was taken to restrict or reduce the airspace inside the mouth of the horn, and create a more gradual taper --
I've scoured the patents for phonograph horns designed during this period -- 1925-1930 -- but have yet to come up with anything for the Tru-Phonic models. Most likely, what designs were used, were never patented. Whether any of the horns followed a true exponential design -- an expansion rate or taper of x-inches per x-number of feet, contingent on the horn's overall length, and the size of the horn's small and large openings -- I don't know.

OrthoFan

alang wrote:In the 1900s and 1910s many of the Sears machines were Columbia or Sears branded Columbia. Not sure about their 1920s and orthophonic machines? Does anyone know?

Andreas

Their 20's machines were built for Sears by outside suppliers- at least some cabinets were built by Pooley, the motors were mostly by Saal, and there is some evidence that the arms were from the Waters-Conley Company who had previously built cameras for Sears. I can only guess that the Truphonic machines were assembled in a similar way.

It's definitely a SAAL Type CC Motor, I got it up and running today. Springs SUCK! Here's a snip-it from a Victor Scroll record. Next topic rebuilding reproducers. I have it's original and I bought a spare. Thank you ALL for your comments, info and support it is greatly appreciated.

Really nice machine! Would love to hear it! Thanks for posting!

Marty Bufalini wrote:Really nice machine! Would love to hear it! Thanks for posting!

Did the video not play? I'm not familiar with posting video's on the board, or actually posting on the board in general.

Did the video not play? I'm not familiar with posting video's on the board, or actually posting on the board in general.

Yes, the video played fine. It is nice sounding phonograph (a great tune, too).