The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Other than hit-and-miss, is there a trick to adjusting early reproducers with no locating notch (and a lever arm)? The adjustable stops on the early carriages allow one to "remember" the setting, but how does one arrive at that setting in the first place?

I've never really been able to discern much difference when I fiddle around with them.

This adjustment screw has more to do with using a Standard Speaker than an Automatic. Because a S Speaker records, it has a fixed lateral position, and its tracking is much more critical, driven only by the feed screw. With an Automatic, the weight mounted stylus has the ability to float and let the cylinder groove track the stylus more precisely so that the tracking position is not fully set by the feed screw alone.

That makes perfect sense. But why, then, did the lever arms persist on to the days of the C reproducer? Perhaps it was for folks who were retrofitting a C into a carriage with an alignment screw and without the alignment nubbin.

cmshapiro wrote:This adjustment screw has more to do with using a Standard Speaker than an Automatic. Because a S Speaker records, it has a fixed lateral position, and its tracking is much more critical, driven only by the feed screw. With an Automatic, the weight mounted stylus has the ability to float and let the cylinder groove track the stylus more precisely so that the tracking position is not fully set by the feed screw alone.

Learn something new everyday. I Also have played around with them with not much of a change. I can see why they kept the arm on for a while because people would probably not buy them. In those days every improvement was a big deal to them. I have one carriage arm that has no adjustment screw to go with the two clips but has been drilled for the reproducer screw. I eyeball the position of the reproducer in the carriage. It has no steel pin in the center to position it. It may have been a aftermarket repair. It works so no gripes. Tom