The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Some of you may not know that Borri Audio laboratories is now in Nashville Tennessee and is part of InnerSpeaker Records. And yes we are gearing up to also produce 78rpm records as well as cylinder records. Here is a nice video of what is going on. http://youtu.be/RikoLXZOPAg

Enjoyed the video.

Clay

Why don't you use a cylinder machine with a flywheel, like they did in the Edison studios? I can always hear flutter in your recordings. I'm sure a flywheel could be adapted to your machine by a competent machinist.

Just need to find another topworks to modify for the large flywheel. Also replace the lower pulley on the triumph with a bronze or brass one, It has the original pot metal one, as I had a newer aluminum one, from one of the phono suppliers and and it was even worse than the original pot metal one. Chuck and I were hard pressed this year at Union to find among all the phonographs one that even would play a 2 minute record at all.

edisonphonoworks wrote:Some of you may not know that Borri Audio laboratories is now in Nashville Tennessee and is part of InnerSpeaker Records. And yes we are gearing up to also produce 78rpm records as well as cylinder records. Here is a nice video of what is going on. http://youtu.be/RikoLXZOPAg

Shawn - enjoyed the video !

Do you folks plan to ( is it even "feasible" ?) to produce 78 rpm discs that can be played on acoustic talking machines ?


Keep up that great work !

Frank

Frank, we certainly are going to try. I am sure we will succeed in doing this, most of the time when I say I am going to do something it comes to fruition, It may take awhile but will become reality eventually. I remember when I announced I was going to make cylinder records, I heard. Oh nobody has figured out Edison's wax formula, the molds are impossible to make ect, that was about 1998 and by 2000 I had a usable formula. Even with that, every day I learn something, and they get better and better. We made 15 lbs today of the finest batch of wax I have made so far. The samples was 1" thick with no crystals in the center or anywhere, It was hard enough to withstand the same playings as a regular brown wax, but still record well. Chemically brown wax is actually harder than black wax, it has more metal content and always did than moulded wax, sounds strange but it is the truth, in fact black wax is a quarter less metal than brown wax.

When the record pressing companies started pressing vinyl discs, they used the same presses they had always used, but I'm fairly sure they had to modify the temperatures they operated at. That would be a minor thing. If you can formulate a shellac compound with the abrasive in it, such as was common in the 1920's and 1930's, I think any record press could be used with appropriate modifications to time of dwell and temperature. To ensure long-life for the resultant discs, particularly if you intend them to be played on acoustic machines, you have to make sure they are not heavily modulated.

edisonphonoworks wrote:Frank, we certainly are going to try. I am sure we will succeed in doing this, most of the time when I say I am going to do something it comes to fruition, It may take awhile but will become reality eventually.

Fantastic!

I recently got the Margaret Young version of "Big Bad Bill." It's great, of course, but what I find myself really wanting to spin is the Van Halen version on shellac. It's simply the hottest (for lack of a better word) version of the song ever recorded. Not that that would be high on your agenda, of course.

Exciting project and greatly look forward to hearing the results of the 78 rpm endeavour. Good luck and well done.

Then we can have the "ultimate" box set that Third Man probably would have liked to release: Re-issued Paramount shellac 78s along with a restored orthophonic portable