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While Victrola's and Edison's mostly used metal horns to amplify their recordings, it seems as many off brand companies used a wood internal horn.

My Magnola Talking Machine, has a nice wood pyramid shaped horn with a volume control which opens and closes a flap inside the horn. The sound from the Magnola sounds so clear and warm compared to the more loud and "metal" sounding of the Victrola and Edison.

I like the Victrola and Edison, its just that they offer a different sound.

Does anyone prefer the Wood internal horns? Do you think an Edison Diamond Disc would have sounded better if Edison would have constructed a wooden horn in his machines?

Material has some effect on tone but the contour and construction - and the tone arm and soundbox- are the most important things. I've heard internal horn machines with boxy wood horns that sounded very poor and I've heard cheap machines with cast iron and sheet metal horns that sound great. I recently heard a machine with a horn made from a composition similar to cast plaster - it had a nice sound.

Victrolacollector wrote:While Victrola's and Edison's mostly used metal horns to amplify their recordings, it seems as many off brand companies used a wood internal horn.

My Magnola Talking Machine, has a nice wood pyramid shaped horn with a volume control which opens and closes a flap inside the horn. The sound from the Magnola sounds so clear and warm compared to the more loud and "metal" sounding of the Victrola and Edison.

I like the Victrola and Edison, its just that they offer a different sound.

Does anyone prefer the Wood internal horns? Do you think an Edison Diamond Disc would have sounded better if Edison would have constructed a wooden horn in his machines?

I think Edison horns sound fantastic. I think that metal was a good choice as Diamond Discs tend to have a warm tone anyway.

It's interesting how these questions and statements can jog the brain back to things long forgotten...This string of posts makes me recall a horn found amungst a junk pile at a fellow collectors house...it was made of concrete , a good inch thick , probably weighed 40 pounds...designed for an internal horned machine...it appeared to be factory made.....any thoughts?

Edison experimented with some phonographs made of cement (the white one in this photo is an example), but I don't know if that included the horn or not or if any made it beyond the experimental stage and were actually sold. They must have been incredibly heavy.

Clay

I recall reading somewhere that Edison conducted tests to see if the material that phonograph horns were made from affected the tone. He even made some experimental horns from plaster. Edison concluded that the material was, ahem, immaterial. I own both wood and metal cygnet horns and cannot detect any difference, so if there really is any, it must be pretty subtle. Surface coatings inside the horn or thickness of the horn might possibly affect the sound. I think the curvature of the horn's flare is the most important factor affecting performance.

You can play a DD on a wood horn Brunswick but then you have the reproducer of a brunswick in the equation. I don't like playing DD on my brunswick. Somewhere I recall someone rigging a victor wood horn machine to play a DD and I think they had video too. Can't remember which collector did this though... anyone else recall this?

Moo, the one I am aware of is not about playing DD, but similar: in the CAPS article linked below, the author Paul Dodington shows how to modify the orthophonic to play Pathé discs. Quite interesting!

http://www.capsnews.org/apn2011-3.htm

Carlos, thanks for the article. An interesting read.

Clay

It's true that Edison DD horns are metal, but I thought most Victrola horns are made of wood. Most Victrolas I've owned including the Credenza have had wooden horns. The only Victrola with a metal horn that I own is the 8-35.