The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I have a problem with the Ultona on my Brunswick console phonograph.It plays fine on lateral discs,but when I attempt to play vertical cut it wants to hang up.It's finicky on Pathés,sometimes they play,sometimes they don't.I wouldn't dare play my Gene Greene Pathé,which is center start,on it.The machine is level,by the way.Any advice?edisonplayer

The Pathé ball stylus can easily skate because of its ball profile. Two things to check. First is the diaphragm bezel on the reproducer turned so that the stylus is front and center when in position and is the tone arm pushed all the way back both for proper tracking? if the stylus is worn that could also cause problems.

I have two Brunswicks with the 3-way Ultona head, and many hundreds of Pathé vertical-cut disks, both edge start and center start. (Unfortunately, no Gene Greene records.) There are a number of factors that will affect whether the head will track without skipping or sliding across the record:

- Mass of the heavy reproducer head and tonearm
- Orientation (telescoping and rotation) of the head
- Positioning of the sliding weight
- Levelling of the cabinet
- Uneven resistance of the tonearm when swung through an arc
- Stylus wear
- Record wear
- Record diameter (small records skip worse)
- Record volume
- Shallowness of groove cut varies
- Eccentricity (off-center) of grooves
- Record warp
- Phases of the moon (just kidding!!!)

I think the heavy mass of the Ultona head is much to blame for tracking errors. I have much better results playing problematic records on an actual Pathé machine with a lighter head. I have come to accept that some records simply won't play on the Brunswick. I play the most problematic records on an Edison DD with adapter to get some benefit of tangent tracking - except that is something that won't work with center-start records.

I have found that often when a record skates across sections of the record it takes a slight movement of the reproducer twisting right or left to get it to track. For some reason mine seems to play best with the stylus slightly tilted toward the right instead of absolutely vertical.

Larry

I did find a solution for playing Pathé verticals.I have a Sonora Baby Grand upright in my bedroom.The floors in my apartment are uneven,so all I did was put another furniture cup under each front leg of the Sonora.Now it works GREAT! I did that yesterday,and I was having a ball playing my verticals.I even played my Pathé center start by Gene Greene!