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An odd machine!
Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 4:19 am
by Kiwi
Has anyone seen a machine like this???
Magnificent gramophone in a large Kauri (New Zealand wood) cabinet with dis mountable side horn.
We've been told that only 2 of this type were ever built in NZ. The mechanism was imported from England apparently and the cabinet and horn hand-crafted here.
Dimensions:
Lid closed / horn stowed away:
75cm (W) x 64cm (D) x 122cm (H)
Lid Open / horn in-place:
129cm (W) x 64cm (D) x 158cm (H).
Re: An odd machine!
Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 4:38 am
by Orchorsol
Wonderful to see this, many thanks for posting! The horn and basic design is almost certainly by Cascade. Interesting soundbox, the like of which I haven't seen before, but the only Cascade gramophone I know of currently has an EMG soundbox with it.
Re: An odd machine!
Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 7:57 am
by US PHONO
Re: An odd machine!
Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2015 2:00 pm
by MTPhono
This is an awesome machine!
Re: An odd machine!
Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2015 11:58 pm
by chunnybh
Wonderful gramophone. Any chance of a video, I'd love to hear it. How does the horn bell fit the rest of the horn?
The Cascades are my favorite gramophones and this one follows the same principals but I don't see any original Cascade parts.
For comparison, I can post a few pictures of my Cascades if anyone is interested.
Re: An odd machine!
Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 2:23 am
by Orchorsol
chunnybh wrote:Wonderful gramophone. Any chance of a video, I'd love to hear it. How does the horn bell fit the rest of the horn?
The Cascades are my favorite gramophones and this one follows the same principals but I don't see any original Cascade parts.
For comparison, I can post a few pictures of my Cascades if anyone is interested.
Yes please Chunny!
Re: An odd machine!
Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 5:04 am
by Steve
Cascades were originally fitted with Meltrope soundboxes.
What a great find and hardly where you'd expect to find one too!
Re: An odd machine!
Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 5:44 am
by FloridaClay
A fascinating machine! How does it sound? If in good order, it must be something with that very large horn.
Clay
Re: An odd machine!
Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 7:45 am
by Steve
Looking at it objectively, it's difficult to understand why they simply never left that horn in the "stowed away" position and designed internal plumbing with a couple of bends in it to attach the horn to the tone-arm so it didn't have to be plugged in externally to use it. It would have still been a great "horn machine", albeit an internal one like the EMG Mark 7. Cascades were a great idea poorly executed - it's little wonder they didn't sell well. They were hopelessly impractical and large with it.
With that said, this is still rather like finding a dinosaur alive and well in the outback.
Re: An odd machine!
Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 2:13 pm
by chunnybh
What makes the Cascade such a special gramophone is the straight Wilson horn. I'm told that bends right at the beginning of the acoustic system don't effect the sound so much but ones later on,they do. I'm quite fond of the re-entrants so I'm not sure if that is strictly true. But, I'd rather listen to a Cascade all day long than any other gramophone.
I've been experimenting with recording from several gramophones using modern microphones and the Wilson horn gramophones are the easiest one to set up. There is no problem with feedback or distortion. I suppose the sound waves aren't bouncing about inside all the bends but are clean and well formed before they leave the horn.
Anyway , here are some pictures of my ugly beasts.
Also two old youtube videos
https://youtu.be/hbRmHipHlag
https://youtu.be/pF22AS3Fv0Q