Electrola history

[streetmechanic14]

Does anyone know of an authoritative account of how Victor arrived at their Electrola lineup and what Western Electric might have thought of them? It's pure speculation on my part but is it possible WE never intended their mid-twenties electrically recorded material to be played on anything but their re-entrant acoustic machines, having listened to what was practically available as electrical reproduction at that time and turned thumbs down on it. If so, what did they make of things like the Borgia II and 8-60 Orthophonics? These of course use elements of both WE and RCA-GE technology in what Maxfield-Harrison-Wente-et al. may have seen as a pretty unhappy combination. Were these devices hatched entirely at Camden with no Western Electric participation? I'm citing those models in particular because things like the Tuscany-Cromwell-Hyperion were obviously "inspired" by the Brunswick Panatropes and involve only RCA-GE design principles.
-Dave

[Inigo]

I read somewhere (? ) that the intention of HMV when launching its line of improved gramophones (those of the Listen to the bass! generation, 1925?? ) as the 101-103-109-126-156-162-181-191-201-211, those with the thin swan neck tonearm, the no4 soundbox and the exponential and saxophone horns (not the folded horns of 1927), was to launch a product that improved the performance with acoustic recordings, in first intention. Then they discovered that the new electrical recordings could be reproduced very well with these acoustic systems, and continued ahead pushing this new line. Indeed these gramophones and their design must have been developed since 1924 or earlier, prior to WE system being unveiled.... Electrolas were launched in Germany by this time, with this line of machines.
Maybe I'm wrong, but read it somewhere...

[epigramophone]

According to a former Chairman of the CLPGS, the HMV "saxophone" horn was a response to the introduction of electrical recordings which were capable of driving a larger horn. The new models first appeared in 1926. All except the 162 and 192 were existing cabinet designs into which the new horns were fitted. To distinguish the modified machines a "1" was added to the model number, so 160 became 161 and so on.

The saxophone horn was not invented by HMV. The Apollo "Deep Tone Resonator" anticipated it by several years.

Somewhere I read that HMV hastily introduced their saxophone horn models because they were reluctant to pay Victor for the rights to the Orthophonic design, but after a couple of years they fell into line and introduced the Re-Entrant horn.

[Skihawx]

I'm citing those models in particular because things like the Tuscany-Cromwell-Hyperion were obviously "inspired" by the Brunswick Panatropes and involve only RCA-GE design principles.
-Dave

I would have imagined that the RCA went to both Victor and Brunswick with electrical phonograph record reproduction. They may have had a better relationship with Brunswick as they previous purchased straight battery operated RCA radios. It may have taken Victor longer to introduce actual models to the public but I don't think Victor saw Brunswick's line and were inspired to come up with their own. I love both Victor and Brunswick machines but don't give either that much credit for taking the RCA electronics and putting them in a cabinet. RCA after all had no interest in selling records so producing a phonograph of their own was not of great interest. They were more interested in promoting the two RCA owned radio networks.

[gunnarthefeisty]

From what I can gather, one of two things happened:
1. Brunswick bought the equipment and really set to it, while Victor either bought it and set it aside or just didn't buy it. Then Victor, seeing Brunswick releasing their Panatrope, hastily constructed their own machine. OR, what's more likely, is that both were working on it at the same time, and Brunswick just rushed a little more to get the upper hand.

[OrthoFan]

If you return to the published documentation describing the development of electrical recording/playback --

maxfield_harrison.pdf

(10.54 MiB) Downloaded 68 times

-- you'll see that the Orthophonic Victrola is really the mechanical equivalent of an electrically amplified phonograph designed to match the characteristics of the recording system Western Electric (Maxfield & Harrison) created.

As the authors state --

The heart of the reproduction system is the sound box--not the horn. The re-entrant style exponential horn was specifically designed to fit into a cabinet that could be accommodated in most homes, and enable the sound waves generated by the sound box to reach the cutoff frequency without reflection or distortion.

At the time the research was carried out, there were no conventional loudspeakers (paper-cone designs) available that could reproduce the sonic range captured by the recording process, so I'd say, yes, it's safe to assume that the Western Electric designers initially envisioned that acoustic reproduction was the ideal method.

OrthoFan

[EarlH]

Back in the early 1980's I met a guy that sold Brunswick's in the 20's and he told me how wonderful the electric Panatropes sounded, but in those days I had no idea what he was talking about as I'd never even seen one in those days. He said that they hauled those heavy things to movie theaters and played them for the audience in between reels. And that the Victor dealers really didn't do much of that. He thought the Victor dealers felt pretty secure with the way things had been going so at first they didn't push the electric stuff very much. He was a nice guy and also said that they did sell a lot of machines doing things that way and that people were completely taken aback at how good those things sounded, and how loud they were. Women generally liked the machines where the whole lid didn't need to be opened as they could keep flowers on the other half! Brunswick was probably better situated to sell something completely new since they really hadn't been around all that long in the mid 20's and young people would have been much more interested in the new technology than the Victor or Edison dealers, many of which would have already been around for 25 years or more by then. I'll bet a lot of those older dealers just dreaded the new problems they were presented with and missed the days of rumbling springs... I've wondered at times if the guys at Western Electric surprised at how good those things sounded? Those things don't sound like something we would expect to hear now, but when you consider when those things were introduced, they really are pretty amazing. And a surprising amount of volume coming from that 6" speaker cone.

[victor 15-1]

How much later did Columbia and Sonora offer electric versions.
I know by at least 1928 they both had something

[streetmechanic14]

This is just the kind of discussion I was hoping to start.
Inigo- You're in a much better position to talk about Electrola and Germany than I am so please correct me here. I had assumed the "Electrola" trade name was introduced in Germany by Victor/HMV people because the "Gramophone-Grammophon" names continued in use there by a company no longer affiliated with them, World War I having ended the multi-national Gramophone companies cooperation.
Gunnar- My guess is Victor and Brunswick took up the electrically-amplified phonograph simultaneously. This flies in the face of the endlessly repeated story of Victor, unimpressed with electrical amplification, sitting on its hands while Brunswick stole the show. I don't believe it. In order to show an Electrola Cromwell at Victor Day, November 1925, even if it might have been a prototype, they must have set themselves to designing it almost immediately after RCA announced the necessary components in September. Remember, it was an entirely new and (for Victor) unprecedented cabinet.
Orthofan- Matched impedance acoustic and electrical reproduction theoretically equivalent- Yes; Practically- No. Owners of restored Borgia II or 8-60 Victors can get a memorable snapshot of the two systems as things stood in 1926 at the flip of a switch (and valve).
Earl H- I had the same experience in the 1980's talking to guys "who were there" and just about anybody in the business then remembered the Panatrope! Questions about how these machines sounded to '20's listeners and to us are worth asking. When I imagine the best WE recordings of April-May '25 played back through the amplifiers used to record them I have to think the results would have been very impressive- even to 21st century ears.
If we were to time-travel to say, December 1925, I think we'd find two very distinct approaches to music reproduction: (1) RCA-GE with what is basically 1924 audio but given new punch with the UX-210 tube and (2) Western Electric, sacrificing the enormous volume in favor of something presaging 1950's hi-fi.

[victor 15-1]

given the choice at a similar cost, the public would overwhelmingly chose electric payback over acoustic