The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hey everyone,

I've tried to find (albeit to no avail) if earlier edison reproducers (e.g. the automatic) can play standard 2-minute wax records. I don't own either reproducer or any cylinder records, but I was curious nonetheless.


Cheers!

Yes, they can. However they are prone to blasting with loud molded cylinders so the sound quality is not as good as with brown wax.

Ah, that would explain it. Thanks.

Yep, the weights on those earlier reproducers
are much lighter than the later weights were.

Also, the earlier reproducers have a ball stylus
rather than the later trunkated "doorknob" stylus
found on the model C.

The lighter weight works fine on quieter less-loud
old brown wax recordings which were mainly meant to
be heard through hearing tubes.

This was in the era prior to the big push to make
the sound reproduction real loud and use big horns
to fill a room with sound.

Those lighter weights were used back in the quieter
more elegant days of brown wax, glass diaphragms,
and hearing tubes.

Using one of those older reproducers to play a loud
Gold Moulded record will literally propel the stylus
clear up and out of the groove! It later eventually
lands a few "bumps" later down the road, hence the blasting.

The later loud records are way, way over-modulated
for being played by an automatic or a standard speaker.

That is why Edison introduced the model C.