The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

This thread is interesting indeed! Here's a couple of beat up pick ups of mine from the late twenties. Both are meant to allow you to use your old machine to play records through your radio. The EFA " Electro Reproducer" has a fitting which is made to fit exactly on a Victor goose neck acoustic tone arm. The leads come out a hole in the side of the housing. I've never heard of the company. Any ideas??The Stromberg Carlson pickup and arm comes with built in volume control. It has a rubber base and I think it was meant to sit in the cabinet of your acoustic machine. The tone arm is so short that it's tracking error must be horrible. And it's heavy, even if it is counterbalanced by an internal spring. ( They're both heavy, let it be said.)
I've replaced the rubber in these two and the Electro doesn't sound half bad.I was not the one who lost the screws and scratched " L" on the cover, by the way. The Stromberg is less wonderful, but I think the magnet is seriously in need of a boost.
I've never seen an ad for these two, but I will muck through my stuff to see if I can find some HMV ads for their pickups and radiograms. When you hear a good HMV radiogram from the late 30's it shows that those gushing reviews in The Gramophone weren't all puff pieces!
Jim

Jim,
I'm sure I've seen that EFA trademark somewhere before. Maybe on old film projectors or related equiptment??

the pictures are really interesting! Shane have you ever tried the No. 11? I'd love to know how they performed.

I have used it, & it sounds quite good, but not quite as good as the 2200/25. The coil is a little bigger in the no.11, as is the rubber piece at the top of the needle bar.
At the moment it's got a very faint hum coming through unfortunately. When I got it, it had been played with & I connected the new wires the same as I'd found it, but I'm not sure if the polarities are correct or back to front (or whether that even makes a difference in these old pick-ups). I've got an RCA plug attached to the end, so swapping the polarity will be pretty easy.
One of these days I'll get around to swapping them over to see if that makes a difference, and I'll check if the needle armature is centralised as good as I can get it.
If that all fails to get rid of the hum, I might have to look at adding a ground wire somewhere, and no doubt having the magnet powered up a bit wouldn't hurt either.
The basic internal design is the same as the 2200, so I see no reason it shouldn't sound just as good, although it does seem a little heavier so it probably isn't as gentle on records.

Thought I'd throw this in too. It's the 2200 in action on my Garrard 301, being reproduced through a cheap midi-system. It doesn't sound too bad, but I always think they sound best through a valve/tube amp.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5Po0aAIyc8[/youtube]

Very nice Shane! Love the sound and love that recording! Thanks for posting it here.

My search now begins for a number 11...they look so ugly I've got to get one.

Regards, G.

This isn't exactly what I was looking for but it's quite in keeping I think.
It's from The Gramophone, September 1936.

I never realised there was such a variety of light weight pick ups available from such an early date to the general public. I've not seen any of those in the flesh. The only light weigh pick ups i've seen was the one I described earlier which was a horsehoe magnet type but with an enormous counter weight so that the pressure on the point was very light indeed. That was on a high end HMV from the mid ish 1930's. The other one i have seen was on a Marconiphone mastergram (radio / phonograph / TV combination). That dated from 1937 and that had a very light weight pick up consisting of a small metal tube with a small pick up head. Although the owner of the machine wasn't sure if it was factory fitted or a later upgrade.

Interesting. Thanks for posting that extract Jim.

Is this the pick-up you're talking about?? Compton Mackenzie, The Gramophone Editor gave it a rave review , and he was a die-hard acoustic man: he held on to his Expert Senior and EMG machine until the last dog was hung, so a positive review of this pick up carries a lot of weight:...so to speak. I've always been a bit curious as to how they sounded, and those late 30's HMV radiograms did sound pretty hot!

Jim