Another off-brand "orthophonic"?

[Lenoirstreetguy]

That's it! That's the T Eaton Company's Amphion from the 1927 Catalogue. I wonder who made the machines for them. I wonder if the Pollock Co in Kitchener, Ontario was the manufacturer. They made the Phonola phonograph and later radios. They changed their name to Electrohome and the company still is in business...but not for long. They are winding down operations..appropriately enough... according to Wiki.

[phonophan79]

Silvertone Tru-phonic
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/ ... 15059.html

[estott]

Nice! I suspect the interior workings aren't much but Sears certainly provided a stylish cabinet for the money. Shouldn't this have high legs- or are they just out of the picture?

[phonophan79]

Another Silvertone Tru-Phonic, obviously not a $650 machine... but I suppose this one looks a little better than the one above.

[phonophan79]

Is this a Pathé "orthophonic"?

[Kirkwood]

Just yesterday I bought that Silvertone Tru-phonic seen in the craigslist posting. It was in good overall condition, nothing has been done to it since it was built. I have it in storage for now until I can get things moved to a new home. I had planned to take a number of photos, but the batteries in my camera quit after only 2 photos. Some interesting factors are:

--It has a 3 spring Saal motor, and is very quiet. Sadly one of the 3 springs is broken which I only discovered today. No big deal, I had planned to clean and regrease the motor one of these days anyway.
--The lid is a single flap across the entire top, the playing compartment is very roomy indeed.
---It's rather tall, for a console style phono, a bit over 42 inches high; the front legs are chunkier than the back legs, which are very slender. They don't match each other at all. Surprisingly, this was factory original this way.
---There was an odd wooden bar sticking out either side, mounted onto the bottom of the case. Further inspection revealed that this was one of the supports from the packing crate; the family had never removed it from the case ever since the day it came to the house.
----The speaker is wood with a strange wooden baffle that was nailed to the bottom of the horn, I suppose to amplify/diffuse/resonate certain sound frequencies?? I guess when you're trying to avoid the Victor patents, or rather the lawyers, you have to get a gimmick like this. The reproducer needs attention, the sound is horrid as it is right now. I didn't bother trying to play more than one record on it.
-----The speaker "throat" that leads from the base of the arm to the wooden speaker is a multi-segment iron pipe-like thing that curves behind the record storage compartment and out to the speaker horn. It came as a surprise to see that, clearly the intent was to make the sound chamber longer for better tonal qualities.

I had a fellow collector chide me for even considering the purchase of this Silvertone. "Nobody out there collects that stuff. You'd be better off buying an Orthophonic". I already have about 7 Orthophonics, this was an interesting cabinet and design. So far, I'm not sorry I bought it.

[OrthoFan]

Hi Kirkwood:

Many thanks for posting the photos of the tone chamber. I've only seen a couple of photos showing Tru-Phonic horns, and it seems that different types were used. One I saw looked like an elongated saxophone with a divider in the center of the horn's mouth, while another was similar to the one used on the Consolette.

Looking at the photo of the horn you posted, it's interesting to note that without the "insert" it looks rather exponential in shape. My guess would be that the insert was added to boost the mid-range or lower response.

Once you get it going, you might try playing it with one of your Orthophonic sound boxes, using an adapter of some type, just to compare the horn, itself, with an Orthophonic horn. (I've found that a small, stiff cardboard tube reinforced with Teflon tape works fine as a temporary adapter when swapping sound boxes.)

OF

[estott]

That horn is not unlike the system in my HMV 109 table model- the horn is sheet metal and has a tight S-curve next to the motor to gain some length. Your machine will probably sound quite good if you put a decent reproducer on it- from the one I've heard you'll get plenty of volume if not a lot of bass response. I've liked the pictures of the higher-end Truphonics I've seen, the buyer definitely got a lot of style for their money. The cheaper ones have been less impressive though.

[OrthoFan]

I just spotted another Tru-Phonic for sale on eBay -- Item # 370339190871

At first glance, it reminds me of one of the Viva Tonal Models.

Truphonic One.JPG (30.87 KiB) Viewed 2586 times

Truphonic Two.JPG (24.37 KiB) Viewed 2586 times

[estott]

That is about as good as they come- but I still don't see $500 as being anything near the value.