The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I have one of these, they are great!

So these actually work pretty well, huh?

I use the low-tech method, counting the revolutions of a small piece of paper sandwiched between the record and the turntable.

I used to do that but now cheat regularly with a stroboscope. I own four different HMV Speed testers and yet I've never actually tried one out!

Garret wrote:So these actually work pretty well, huh?

I would say yes, as long as you want to calibrate the machine at 78rpm. This obviously won't work for all applications, like Pathé machines for instance. It's certainly a good starting point and they are easy to use.

OK, I give up. How does the darn thing work?

Henry wrote:OK, I give up. How does the darn thing work?

You place the device on the turntable spindle (there's a hole in the bottom) and as the turntable is rotating, the gold disc on the top will become flush with the top of the tester at 78rpm. If the disc is above the surface of the tester, it's going too slow, and if it is below the surface, it's going too fast. There is a calibrated weight inside that reacts to centrifugal force and raises or lowers the gold disc in relation to speed.

Here is mine:

Aha! Thanks for the explanation.

This rather battered contraption is a Columbia Speed Tester, calibrated to be "correct" at 80rpm.

Like the HMV it locates on the turntable spindle, but displays a coloured indicator. Green indicates speed 80, white is too slow and red is too fast.

Unfortunately my example is broken, so I have never seen it in action.