The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

In this day of technology, I thought it might be interesting to find a way to acoustically amplify my MP3 music through a Victor horn machine or Victrola. I found a simple and cheap way of doing this... It requires two pieces of schedule 40 plastic pipe pieces - a cap and a plug, an Exhibition reproducer flange, a little modifying and a cheap Boom Cube, as Seen on TV and available from Amazon or possibly Walgreens. I basically made a rechargeable electronic reproducer, which fits any Victor machine.

http://www.amazon.com/Boom-Cube-As-Seen ... B00A3EWBT6

The cap is 2 ¼" O.D. and 1 ⅞" I.D.(probably 2") - the plug is 2" O.D. and cut out to fit the cube. The plug has a hole drilled in the center - I think ½" and the Victor flange is mounted with two screws (if you don't have access to a flange, you can probably glue a piece of PVC to the plug that will fit over the tonearm elbow).

Suddenly - it's 1925 !




Cool invention ! ( I will have to build one of those, just the blow the little minds of my I-pod friends ! )

Would love to hear it through an Orthophonic horn.

I'll take the idea one step further - a wireless speaker. You can buy little round Bluetooth speakers at Walmart or Best Buy for $40. They put out a powerful sound as they are, but imagine putting one inside a horn! Then play your tunes from a tablet computer or iPhone.

Will post video

Picture

For the sake of amusement, here are two photos and a You Tube video of an experiment to show what the results of using a blue tooth mini-speaker are on an EMG Mk Xb Oversize gramophone. The sound is not good but the idea is interesting I think and with properly designed/matched components, the quality of the sound could be much better. There are developments currently taking place in Japan along these lines but these involve greater hard-wired direct power input from an amp'. The blue tooth technology does not really seem to allow for adequate electrical input in this application and therefore volume is low.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLzCnuQIPew

The final three photos and further video show the normal soundbox replaced by the driver from a public address loudspeaker such as was formerly used on racecourses a few decades ago. That horn was made from aluminium and, although exponential, does not sound good when used for playing music. However, Emma Kirkby played through the original papier appliqué EMG Mk Xb acoustic system sounds reasonably acceptable and very much better than via blue tooth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2ZLAdn-zBE

The whole exercise is a little bizarre but, nevertheless, interesting as an experiment.

What fun !

Curt A wrote:I basically made a rechargeable electronic reproducer, which fits any Victor machine.

This looks excellent. May we hear it please ?

I'll try to make a video playing through my VV-50. As far as sound goes, it is just as loud as playing a record on it with the added bonus of volume control. It's also interesting to play streaming audio from Radio Dismuke through it and it never needs winding... http://early1900s.org/radiodismuke/index.html

Here is a second "Bluetooth" experiment with an EMG Mk Xb Oversize horn where the diameter of the modern mini speaker has been more accurately matched to the inlet aperture of the horn. To achieve this, the horn has had to be dismounted and used in isolation from the gramophone.

The results are dramatically improved and beautiful to listen to when in the room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbtikGV8WHo