The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

With the crappiest record I could find I tried this. I made my own very thin needle and used a rubber washer tight around the spindle shaft to clamp the record down. I adjusted the speed controller of the plate and almost going under the turntable with a strobe to go 33 rpm. I set on the needle and vinyl sprayed everywhere! It actually sounded pretty good though. Give it a try!

Ortho_Fan wrote:Well, there's always the "build it yourself" Gakken Gramophone --

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KvFHnY8r9w[/youtube]

http://compare.ebay.com/like/1106812013 ... r&_lwgsi=y

That's really a cute little machine. I wouldn't mind having one of those.
Harvey Kravitz

I tried playing a vinyl 33 on my VVX years ago- I rigged up a counterweight lever device to lighten the soundbox & used a thin needle. For an idiot experiment it was successful, but it was never more than a one time thing.

I have to confess, I actually did try playing a 45 RPM record on a portable Sears Silvertone phonograph--the first one I ever acquired, in fact. The record was Pee Wee King's version of the "Tennessee Waltz" (vocal by Redd Stewart) and it was a (very early) green vinyl pressing. Fortunately, I had to good sense to use a cactus needle, so no damage was done to the record.

I really don't see the use in building a crapo or franken or whatever phone. A handful of dollars of euros buys you a decent sounding modern system. Why, for Pete's sake revert to steam power when you can have solare power for the same price? I'm all for not forgetting our history, but let's use it for historic objects! You cannot play a USB-stick on an Edison tin-foil machine. Both may contain the same information, but are slightly incompatible.
I see no sense in making machines for playing modern records acoustically. You know in advance that they will always be vastly inferior. I do see sense in an experiment how acoustic development could have evolved with 78s. In the mid 1930s electric reproduction won over acoustic after a long battle. But not because it was better. VHS video beat Betamax because of better market distribution. Technically it was far inferior.
It was the same with music reproduction. Many portables were way better than electric models. And they were much more careful with the records too. For many of these early pickups had the geometrics of a medieval castle and the weight of a pyramid. The first Philips record player is a prime example of that. It has a tracking force of over one pound and a tone arm with zero geometry. An HMV portable of the same periode has perfect geometry and plays at around 70 grammes. Less than a quarter and something every record of that age could stand without problem if you changed the needle after every side. I've never worn out a single record on my old machines, following the rules.
I did have quite a few records though that were ruined by early magnetic pick-ups, that simply couldn't track and thus ploughed on. Bass notes that were completely gone for instance.

I might actually do some other things to a crapo, such as modify it into a semi-decent machine (cleaning and re-greasing the springs, extend the tonearm, make a new horn, etc.). What materials were used in actual external horn gramophones?