Graphophone Q winding down too fast.

[kirtley2012]

After lots of futzin' my triumph has become the shelf jewelry.

it seems a shame to do that with a triumph, i would love to get my hands on it to try and fix it! one of those are near the top of my wish list!

[gramophoneshane]

Alex, you'd be a lot better off with an Amberola 30 or 50 than with a Triumph. An Amberola will give better sound & performance, & the cylinders are cheap & plentiful, and wont wear out, crack & go moldy like wax cylinders.

[Valecnik]

After lots of futzin' my triumph has become the shelf jewelry.

it seems a shame to do that with a triumph, i would love to get my hands on it to try and fix it! one of those are near the top of my wish list!

Brad, I'm really surprised. My experience has been just the opposite. I think the Triumph may well be the most trouble free phonograph ever made and among the best sounding, second only to an Opera or Amberola 1B. You must have a very strong shelf by the way!

Alex, you'd be a lot better off with an Amberola 30 or 50 than with a Triumph. An Amberola will give better sound & performance, & the cylinders are cheap & plentiful, and wont wear out, crack & go moldy like wax cylinders.

Shane, re. the Amberola 30 I couldn't agree with you less. The 50 is a good bit better and may run equally as well as a Triumph but re. sound quality the Triumph with an O reproducer for wax records, (which the 30 & 50 can't play)and a diamond B for blue amberols is really about as good as it gets, better than most Amberola 1As and slightly better running with slightly lower sound quality than a 1B imho.

[gramophoneshane]

I probably should have been clearer, but I was refering to the sound quality of a Triumph with a 14" witches hat horn that was standard issue with earlier models, although I use a 12 panel straight Triumph horn & diamond B on my Home phonograph, and it doesn't sound that much better than my 30 considering the difference in horn size.
The 12 panel is a little louder & clearer, but the horns in the small Amberolas are a great design & far more pleasurable to listen to than a 14" horn.
Even though I have a 10 panel horn on my Gem, an 11 panel cygnet on my Standard, & the 12 panel on my Home, I still listen to all my BA's on my Amberola 30. I just find it a more convenient machine to use. You dont have to dodge horns, anchor it down with one hand to wind it, being direct drive there's no belt to worry about, and the anti-flutter feature on the mandrel seem to work a little better than those on the belt pulley (or those without them), resulting in smoother reproduction.
Apart from compact convenience, I still think an Amberola 30 or 50 is a great choice for a newbie collector who's still in school & on a budget

[kirtley2012]

despite my age i am acctually not a newbie! i have acctually been collecting for 4 years since i was 10, but 2-3 of those years was mostly just looking on the internet and researching meanwhile i was buying lp's and 45's before i realised they were terrible and decided to start investing money on older machines and records
i got my fist gramophone in 2010 and since then have been growing my collection
i do want to get a amberola 30/50 one day but since i perfer the earlier external horn machines i am more prepared to pay more money for them than a amberola 30 or 50, what i want to do is to get a amberola 30/50 restoration project reasonably cheap from ebay or someone locally or even someone on this forum then restore that since i would like to work on one those
at the moment i have a edison home mod B to finish paying off then i may invest in a amberola
which is better or cheaper? the 30 or 50
Alex

[Valecnik]

I probably should have been clearer, but I was refering to the sound quality of a Triumph with a 14" witches hat horn that was standard issue with earlier models, although I use a 12 panel straight Triumph horn & diamond B on my Home phonograph, and it doesn't sound that much better than my 30 considering the difference in horn size.
The 12 panel is a little louder & clearer, but the horns in the small Amberolas are a great design & far more pleasurable to listen to than a 14" horn.
Even though I have a 10 panel horn on my Gem, an 11 panel cygnet on my Standard, & the 12 panel on my Home, I still listen to all my BA's on my Amberola 30. I just find it a more convenient machine to use. You dont have to dodge horns, anchor it down with one hand to wind it, being direct drive there's no belt to worry about, and the anti-flutter feature on the mandrel seem to work a little better than those on the belt pulley (or those without them), resulting in smoother reproduction.
Apart from compact convenience, I still think an Amberola 30 or 50 is a great choice for a newbie collector who's still in school & on a budget

Shane I certainly agree with you re. the 14" witches had. I also agree that even though the straight Triumph horn is 10x the size of an Amberola 30 horn, it certainly does not sound 10x better but it does sound somewhat better, (but is way more intrusive). Also, no disagreement regarding the relatively convenient operation of a 30.

Considering all of the above, the Triumph (with any sort of cygnet) would be the last one out the door here, even comparing to the Opera, 1A & 1B because:

- Plays 2 & 4 minute records of any type with O & diamond b reproducer
- Steady runner with minimal wow & flutter
- 1A has better horn design but is a bit noisy
- 1B & Opera have the better horn & motor design, (direct drive like the 30 & 50) but again 4 min only

The 30 certainly wins on convenience though and as you rightly point out, there's more to the comparison than the size of the horn!

[JerryVan]

You mentioned that your belt is thin and soft which is good. How tight is it? I've installed new belts on the these and had to set them fairly loose, even having to add belt dressing to prevent slipping.

[debndunk]

Hi thanks for getting back on to the original question that I posted, I really think it's the spring that is at fault because on a full wind it runs down far too quickly even without engaging the reproducer on to the feed screw. I have disengaged the mandrel and the tention on the spring is nil. All I can think of doing is changing the spring to a longer one?

[Brad]

Gordon,

I'll defer to others that may have more specific experience or data, however, it could be that your spring is too short, it could also be that it is too long.

If it takes up too much space in the barrel, there wouldn't be sufficient "space" to wind the spring with enough potential to give enough time.

What is needed is the details of the length and thickness of the original springs used.

I'm following this thread with interest.

Good luck.

[JerryVan]

You probably just need a new spring as they can get weak with age. It shouldn't be a question of length, just one of strength. (Unless of course someone cut the spring short for some reason.)