Electric cylinder reproducer

[RefSeries]

A usable electric player can be made by a relative amateur (like me) - I have posted this before but my very amateur Mk.II is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHNcn9FRzko. It was made with hand tools, and while is far from a professional machine allows the recording and electric playing of standard sized cylinders, the much lighter tracking weights being kinder to wax cylinders than an acoustic reproducer. The use of scrap Edison tops has made the mechanicals easier as I don't have access to appropriate metal working facilities but cast iron bedplates with plain bearings are well up to the job, irrespective of age.

In using it I have found that the real enemy of cylinder recording is not so much the application of hi-tech reading of the cylinder itself, more the effect of a century of wear and poor storage. The signal being recorded is only roughly 200-5,000Hz, and while there might be some harmonics outside this which influence the recording these are far from hifi. Before we get to the signal, however, there are more mechanical matters to overcome.

Blue Amberols warp, and the effect of celluloid shrinkage creates longitudinal 'flats' which come over as thumps in the recording if a tone arm approach like mine is used. This can be minimized to some extent by low speed recording and using software to come back to speed, but on poor examples this is still unable to smooth things out.

Clicks and pops can be reduced or removed by using automatic click remover software, but this can create more problems than it solves for heavy scratches and it is better to clip them out individually. It takes time, but can be done.

Shrinkage hits Lamberts (both US and British), International Indestructibles and other celluloid records, and even some wax ones too. These need some kind of special mandrel to mount them, but record quite well as they probably haven't been played for ages. Here a tone arm comes into its own, as the ultra-short cartridge mounts on simple reproducer replacement systems won't track a shrunken cylinder very well.

On wax records, simple wear reduces high frequencies. This is particularly common on wax Amberols and early brown waxes. I hope to try recording them backwards and reversing them with software, on the premise that the 'rising' part of the waveform gets more wear than the 'falling', but I have yet to complete the reverse tone arm and haven't tried it, so can't report whether the idea has legs or not.

Non-circularity is a real problem. This produces 160rpm wow, sometimes of quite alarming proportions. Blue Amberols and some wax Amberols exhibit this, and there is no way to clear it that I am aware of other than Adrian Tuddenham's excellent machine which can be seen on Christer Hamp's site. My Mk.III machine, now in construction, should also address this issue but is still at the assembly stage and has yet to be tested in action.

The real bugbear for wax is mould. While some light surface degradation can be reduced by software I have not been able to recover 'good' sound from a mouldy cylinder. This isn't so much of a problem if one is seeking an archive of a rare and precious record but does not produce something which you could play over dinner.

The Archeophone is a superb machine. It is beautifully made, and is easy to use. It can be made to play cylinders of more or less all types from Liorets to Stentors, and with careful packing and alignment can reduce many of the impacts of warp and shrinkage. It is a pity that some enterprising designer hasn't come up with an affordable alternative. As has been said by others prices are coming down, but it needs someone to actually take the step to do it. Good luck and best wishes to John Levin with his machine - we need to capture these increasingly fragile recordings before they get lost forever, and if all of us get their collections recorded that would be a great first step.

Sorry for rambling on but this whole subject is addictive! I would be happy to correspond with others who are building their own machines or who have experience in the concept. Happy new year

Keith

[tinovanderzwan]

those are a couple of great machines keith! i wouln´t mind adding these to my studio
the only downside is that only standard size cylinders can be played playing concerts, salon and any other type like f.i lioret cylinders then would mean that you´ll have to build seperate elec phonographs for them

with my elongated tone arm with pre-amp i can play all types as well as all types of discs the biggest disc i digitized was 50cm and the smallest only 4cm
for digitizing my lioret cylinders i used a stepper motor with the front of a elec drill attached i put the small liotet cyl, on a rod and fixed it in place with 2 nuts and then put it in the drill part it works fine and its so simpel
for the lioret no4 cylinders i use a adapter ring on a regular phonograph
i use a amberola 30 for most standard size cyll remove the carrier eye and you'll have a perfect platfor for digitizing standard size cyl the motor of the 30 is very quiet
for digitizing 20th century cyl i use my columbia type c
i make my own needles sets they are attached to a pertinax plate fixed to the body of the cardridge and epoxied into a small brass holder the needle shaft of the cardrige is attached to the other side of the brass holder this setup is very strong and can withstand constant abuse from warped cyl also it can survive a shuddering stop like the one the amberola 30 does
this setup can also play a cylinder backwards if i really wanted to

these pertinax plates with needle holders can be found in electric dictaphone cylinder dictating machines you either use the existing saphire witch is fine for all 2m cyl or replace it by epoxying another needle in place

my new project is finding a way to digitize tefifon cassettes i'm looking for a tefifon player for this project
tefifon tapes where tapes with grooves just like on a 78

tefifon_kc1_39734.jpg (31.02 KiB) Viewed 824 times

it will probably take me a wile to locate a player since i don't want it as a collectors item i'm not prepared to pay top dollars for someting i'm gonna use as a work horse
anyway to be continued


tino