The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

gramophoneshane wrote:Am I right to assume the record selector is only useful with outside start Pathé's, in the same way as Edison's buttons as stated above?

I made the tests with early records starting from the center and the record selector does work for such records.

gramophoneshane wrote:If the machine was slowing straight away at the outer edge of the record then it could be due to extra force being exerted on bearings etc because the defuser is lowered further away from the centre spindle, but that doesn't seem to be the case here..
I wonder if like Russie found with his 12" records, youre not winding it enough to be able to play for the extra 45-60 seconds needed for a 14" disc?

Well, as the 14" record was starting from the inside, I did suspect that, as you said, "it could be due to extra force being exerted on bearings etc because the defuser is lowered further away from the centre spindle" but I did'nt know how to phrase it in English... I think it's a combination of weight and extra force.
I had no issue with the 12"record and the spring was fully wounded when I tried with a 14" record.

gramophoneshane wrote:I was surprised to see the 14" discs are more than double the weight of a 12" record, considering there's really only a 1" wide ring of shellac added to the outside of a 12" record. But I suppose the larger the diameter, the thicker the pressings became, to compensate for warpage and breakage issues.

I too was surprised by the weight difference then realized that the 14" record was a very early Pathé record while the 12" was an Opera label (thinner and with a much better quality).

There are different types of motor on machines that utilize the paper difusor cone. There are large cabinets with big motors (I have posted the photo of one of mine, a Napoleon III style cabinet, elsewhere in this forum). These will comfortably play all discs up to the 40 cm records (but not the 50 cm ones, which are only playable in the older Concert machines). More recent Difusor machines, like the linear tracking and the pivoting ones that are shown above in this thread, utilize a puny motor and are designed to play only the smaller size records up to 12 inches. These are the ones mounted on a rectangular box, made of cheap wood and cheaply varnished. When in good condition and well lubed these later machines can play one side of an unworn record, but will get stuck when facing a worn one. The one with the louvers, which is of older production, also shown above, has a larger motor and a higher quality woodwork. The Diamond is the low end brand of Pathé, but given the large variations that Pathé applied to their production, a Diamond machine is not consistently worse than a corresponding Pathé-branded.