What if Pantograph Disc to cylinders.

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edisonphonoworks
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What if Pantograph Disc to cylinders.

Post by edisonphonoworks »

We all know that Edison Dubbed Blue Amberol masters from Diamond Discs, with a reproducer to recorder, through long skinny 6' horns, and at times rubber tubes with cotton in them before the trunnion (The studio recorder was a trailing kind of recorder, not a floating weight like the Edison home recorder, more similar to a Graphophone recorder, with an advance ball. Henry Seymour gives himself credit for inventing the advance ball, or " bearing Bridge" as he called it, in a 1903 patent.) Anyhow to get to the point,If the Diamond Disc machine would have been 194.667 like the studio cylinder recorder for four minute masters, then it would have been possible to panto-graph the grooves from the Diamond Disc directly to the cylinder master without having to do an acoustical dubbing through diaphragms, it could of been like the panto-graph, however that did not come to fruition, just a silly thought.

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Lucius1958
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Re: What if Pantograph Disc to cylinders.

Post by Lucius1958 »

I do like these "what if?" type of questions...

Why did Edison settle on 150 tpi for the discs, instead of the already established 200? It would have made for a longer playing record; and, judging from the sound quality on the directly recorded BAs, would not have sacrificed anything acoustically.

Perhaps the simplest explanation is that, owing to Edison's parsimonious nature, acoustic dubbing was the cheapest method. They could use a disc pressing right off the production line, without bothering about the thread discrepancy (even with a 200 tpi disc, there would have to be some mechanism to compensate for the difference).

Besides, by 1914/15, it was pretty obvious that entertainment cylinders were on the decline. Why spend more than they had to?

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Re: What if Pantograph Disc to cylinders.

Post by WDC »

Pathé did practically pantograph everything and their sound quality is not really up even to the standard of an acoustic Edison dubbing. It lacks of depth, dynamics and clarity. Instead, you get a very thin sound quality that also often lacks of proper volume.

The reason for doing 150 instead of 200 tpi could have been the decision made upon the materials that were involved. At the much higher weight applied to the record surface, a wider 150 tpi groove does have several benefits over one at 200 tpi regarding record wear and potential damage to the diamond stylus.

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Lucius1958
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Re: What if Pantograph Disc to cylinders.

Post by Lucius1958 »

WDC wrote:Pathé did practically pantograph everything and their sound quality is not really up even to the standard of an acoustic Edison dubbing. It lacks of depth, dynamics and clarity. Instead, you get a very thin sound quality that also often lacks of proper volume.

The reason for doing 150 instead of 200 tpi could have been the decision made upon the materials that were involved. At the much higher weight applied to the record surface, a wider 150 tpi groove does have several benefits over one at 200 tpi regarding record wear and potential damage to the diamond stylus.
That, however, did not deter the Edison company from pursuing the LP records later on, which had a much finer groove (450 tpi - finer even than a vinyl LP)...

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Re: What if Pantograph Disc to cylinders.

Post by WDC »

Exactly, and we all know how quickly that 450 tpi story did end.

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VintageTechnologies
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Re: What if Pantograph Disc to cylinders.

Post by VintageTechnologies »

All of Pathé's discs were pantographic transfers from large cylinders, so far as I know. I think most of them transferred well without loss of quality from the master. Playback with an electric pickup will reveal a rumble on a few of them, but not too often. Pathé records did vary in quality, as did other brands, but their best ones are superb even if they fall short of Edison's best disks. I have many hundreds of Pathé European and American disks to judge by.

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