The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Finally I had the time to compare and listen to the sound of the big three with my untrained ear. I chose a distance of ten feet from the horn. I noticed that Columbia Viva Tonal 810 and Brunswick Panatrope Cortez are side by side. You can imagine or feel your presence in a ballroom where the orchestra is playing, much more to Columbia Viva Tonal 810. This is due to the high and medium frequencies that bounce's back and forth to the wall, The low frequency which is the bass is definitely present in both machines, but was over powered by the high and medium frequencies, which are very crisp, clear and loud. Again, feeling like being a part of the crowded ballroom is present, The sound of the Victor Orthophonic Credenza is nice and is good for relaxation, because of the mellowness of the high and the low frequencies, you can hear more of the bass, but sounded very distant and caver most.

This is just how my ear hears it, it well be pleasant to hear the Forum's opinion.

Thanks........Jim

I'd be interested if you could compare off axis listening with the three. Not straight into the horn, but from an angle to the side. Also, when you play the same record with the same kind of needle are there any differences in volume?

Thanks for this post. I'm going to be keeping an eye open for a Columbia Viva Tonal 810 from now on. Really beautiful machines and the best looking of the big three in my opinion.

Back in the late 1980's when my grandpa was alive, he told me how they had a really nice Columbia machine in the late 1920's down in Kentucky. My grandpa was very critical on sound quality, after all he owned a TV-Radio-Phonograph repair store in the Indiana Harbor (East Chicago) in the 1950's, by then he was serving Hi-Fi's etc., but he still did some wind-up phono repairs (mostly suitcase models).

He said the Columbia that his family had was a large machine (as wide as the refrigerator) and the best sounding machine he had ever heard. I am wondering if it was the 810 or some other Viva-tonal type. Sadly, the depression took its toll, the saw mill and farm could not sustain them, and he said that the machine was repossessed.

Place your Credenza in a corner at a 45 degree angle. This greatly enhances the bass response.

I'm betting with the deflected sound, the Columbia will sound better straddling the corner of a room than in the middle of it. The Brunswick is definitely better sitting straight on. The three machines seem to be approaching the problem three different ways... The Victor goes after bass by running the sound through an exponential horn (at the risk of tubby muffled sound). The Columbia throws the sound out at an angle to reflect off the walls of the room (at the risk of not having sympathetic room acoustics or placement in the room). And the Brunswick takes the old school approach of a very large traditional wood horn (at the risk of being very loud). I think I understand why the Brunswick plays acoustics and later records better than the other brands. Since the horn is relatively straight and very large, the sound is direct, and it's the response of the reproducer that really matters. Brunswick was probably aiming at making a phono that played everything, while Victor and Columbia were designing theirs to play specifically orthophonic and viva-tonal records.

My Dad was born in 1918 and had a very definite idea about what good sound was for him. He liked thick, tubby sound with rolled off treble and softened upper mids. I remember he built his stereo using those 15 inch nested all in one organ speakers. That seems to be the Orthophonic approach, and that sound continued up until the early 50s in a lot of console radio phonographs.

phonojim wrote:Place your Credenza in a corner at a 45 degree angle. This greatly enhances the bass response.

This is true for ALL horn devices. Even for horn-loaded loudspeakers. The lower the steradians of the solid angle over which the sound has to be emitted, the lower will go the frequency response.

A fair comparison is done only when the three machines are put in the same environment and conditions. If one is put at the center of a wall and another in a corner, the second will obviously show a much deeper bass.