The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I am surprised to find that the bell of the horn was not much larger than the c-250 horn. I remember reading (perhaps on this forum) that the first Edisonics used a horn that was similar in nature to the older horns and then they quickly introduced and improved horn. I would like to know what the differences between the two are.

Perhaps the longer neck allowed for the total horn to be a more ideal tapper that is more similar to the logarithmic horns used by the other companies. Greg Bogantz is the guy to chime in, as he is very knowledgeable about these things. I suspect that the horn tapper was not as mathematically ideal as the Western Electric formulas, but was probably an approximation.

The horn is actually much smaller than the 250 which is a real puzzlement to me. I suspect, and only am guessing that Edison being somewhat under siege by the time they came up with the Edisonic design may have been skimping on cost as much as possible. The motor boards have no wood surround as most larger edsions had, evidently then it also had no automatic stop for record sizes? It may be that they thought the longer throat would compensate for an smaller bell opening, but that runs contrary to their own past experience with the 250 offering the "Laboratory" sound due to its size. My experience has been that each time I went from a smaller opening horn to a larger one the total volume and quality of sound increases.. The very large horn machines in europe had long throats but the bell was also equally much larger to develop the sound properly.

Larry