The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Looking for a electric horseshoe pick up that will fit a Victrola tone arm.

Right hand or left? Highh or low impedance? It would probably be best to know the specific model for which you need the reproducer.

Hi Victrolacollector...
I have two horseshoe magnet pickup's I would part with. Here's a few pics.
You probably preffer the one with the Victor logo to match your tonearm.
The one with the logo came from a Victor RE-45...the other one from a Atwater-Kent model 75

They will both need to be serviced to make them operational again.
I recommend West-Tech.
http://west-techservices.com/p1h.htm

PM if you are interested.
Dave

From his description, I suspect that Victrolacollector is looking for the earlier pickup which fits on the end of an Orthophonic Victrola tone arm. These are a bit thin on the ground nowadays. On the other hand I have a peck basket filled with the 1929-1935 straight pickups.

I never assume....Its always better to let people speak for themselves....
If I'm wrong..no big deal.

Dave, those are some nice pick-ups.

But UncleVanya, must have a crystal ball.....He is right I am looking for one that fits on a acoustic tone arm, with leads for a external speaker.

I have no idea what one would cost or even popularity or scarcity. I just think it would be neat to have one.

Jerry

Left hand pickups, good rebuildale cores, complete with nice finishes generally sell for around $75.00 these days. Right hand pickups, made for the changers , are a bit pricier. Oxidized units that were use on the 7-26 are a mite cheaper, I would think.

By-the-bye, those pickups did not have leads. They were fitted with contacts like those of a bayonet light bulb.

Now there also were accessory pickups, some very fine indeed, which will fit on the end of a Victrola tone arm. Of theAmerican made models I would say that the Bosch Re-Creator and the Pacent Phonovox are about the best. I'm particularly fond of the 1928 model Phonovox which is setup to allow the use of those triangular bamboo needles.

I just bought on eBay a Pacent Phonovox that attaches to a Victrola tonearm as a replacement for the acoustic reproducer. The unit I bought has been rebuilt and sounds okay on the seller's YouTube demo. I know these were typically plugged into the audio input jack of 1930's era radios, but I wonder, has anyone in this forum has tried connecting a magnetic pickup like this to modern electronics, such as a computer sound card? Apart from adapting the leads to a mini-plug, will there be problems with impedance matching or burning out the card from the pickup's 1.5 volt output? Would some kind of electronic interface be necessary? For those curious why I would want to do this, I want to try recording very early disks having oddball speeds and various (and worn) groove geometries. In addition, those old magnetic pickups seem to reproduce less scratch than modern lightweight pickups. The needle bar on the unit I bought has a triangular hole which suggests I'll be able to experiment with bamboo needles as well!

Speaking from my experience only, you'll need a line-input capability for modern-day laptops or computers.
You should be able to find an inexpensive USB sound card with the features you need.

I've done a lot of recording directly off rebuilt horseshoe pickups, and though you're correct there seems to be less obtrusive surface scratch, the mid-range frequencies are boosted at the expense of everything else, in my opinion. I've gone back to using a modern lightweight pickup and appropriate 78 rpm stylus, with cleanup and equalization done with my preferred audio software (DC-eight)
Bob