The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Which is your favorite... 2 or 4 minute cylinders?

I am wondering if any of our forum members have a preference? 2 or 4 minute cylinders?

I like my 2 minute cylinders, but for real listening, it is the 4 minute cylinders.

For 2 min. cylinders, I prefer indestructible ones. The only time I buy wax is if they come with a machine. For 4 min. ones I choose Blue Amberols and 4 min. Indestructible ones. Just my tastes.
Harvey Kravitz

Phonofreak wrote:For 2 min. cylinders, I prefer indestructible ones. The only time I buy wax is if they come with a machine. For 4 min. ones I choose Blue Amberols and 4 min. Indestructible ones. Just my tastes.
Harvey Kravitz

Sounds like me, I try and stay away from wax. They are too fragile.

Maybe I'm different or just older but I enjoy listening to early Edison black cylinders from 1902 to 1904. These were the cylinders that came after brown wax with only the number etched on the cylinder. As for collecting I like nothing better that brown wax cylinders.

Rich Gordon

They each have their charms.

Brown wax is the beginning, and as such is special and primitive and needs to be protected...and not played very often.

There is plenty of pristine black wax out there to be had, and the moldy ones tend to give the whole group a bad rep, but some of the best and most quaint "time-machine" stuff is found there. And they can sound amazingly good when in good shape.

The wax amberols are well deserving of their own bad rep, but some can be fun.

The blue amberols are bulletproof and the early direct-recorded ones can sound really, really good...but much of the material is just plain boring. The later, dubbed, ones don't sound as good sometimes but the material is often more interesting (at least to our modern ears). Of course the last ones, when jazzy, are lots of fun and quite rare and thus expensive.

My approach has been to make sure I have the machines to assure I can properly play each variant, and to accumulate all types (in bulk usually). I have tons of them and actually plan to sell some off (also in bulk, on here) shortly!

My only cylinder machine is an Amberola 50, so it's BA's for me. Although the occasional 4 minute Indestructible has crept in, I find their sound quality and surface generally inferior to the BA. Like most collectors I prefer the directly recorded BA's, which almost all the British Series are. I have no desire to branch out into wax cylinders and their problems.

It seems to me the black wax cylinders are 60% to 70% operas singing with one or two people. I enjoy that for relaxing but prefer the BAs for the wide variety. It is hard to find a foxtrot on a wax cylinder. If I am not careful I am clumsy and have broken a few. I do not have a lot of wax cylinders maybe 50, but it seems about a quarter of them are religious. I do not mind that at all but I ,like a lot of others, like variety such as uncle Josh and other variety's of music. I played a bunch of them yesterday on a cool semi rainy day. They sounded excellent being played on a standard E with a cygnet horn and a diamond B reproducer. Tom B

Edison Gold moulded 2-minute cylinders are relatively strong to handling (compared to brown wax and other brands), and there is a large number that survives today without the wax-eating mildew. The music you find however is confined to what was popular in the first decade of the 20th century: light classical, music hall songs, hymns etc. By the time foxtrots became popular Edison had already converted to amberols, and the others had ceased production of cylinders. Wax amberols are to be avoided, they are as strong as egg shells, and Blue amberols survived well the years, with only the problem of core swelling - it can be solved with reamers. Their sound quality can be however worse than the earlier cylinders, as most of them were dubbed from diamond discs, in some cases with atrocious distortions. As epi says, when directly recorded their sound is of good quality, comparable to the contemporary disc recordings.

For sonic impressiveness, a 2 minute mid to late production gold moulded cylinder in excellent condition is hard to beat. My main beef with the the BAs is the reduced volume with the tendency to be slightly out of round (and therefore extra "wow"). The 2 minute also has the advantage of the shorter duration when demonstrating a machine to the un-initiated. (I try to take it easy on my guests.)

Martin

They both have charms.

For actually listening to the music, I would go for a Blue Amberol everytime but a two-minute can also be fun, it just depends on the artiste.

Unfortunately the UK climate is not too kind to 2-minute wax cylinders and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find any in really good condition.

All the best

Tim W-W