The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hi All.
Is there much of a sound quality difference from one pre-orthophonic victrola to the next? I see lots of posts about the quality of the cabinetry, but little about the sound. Do they all sound pretty much alike?

My opinion is yes, I think they all sound about the same. That said, a small table-top Victrola, with its small horn, won't sound as nice as a large floor model example, but all the pre-Ortho Victrolas use pretty much the same reproducers, so... Again, just my take on it.

Of a number of acoustic Victrolas I've owned, I've thought the best sound was produced by a 1918 VV-XVI. When playing electrically recorded records on that, even that sound was improved by the substitution of a later Thorens 'Primaphonic' reproducer (which has the same mount) for the Victor No. 2. It seemed to be just a perfectly designed and made machine.

I'm not an expert, but I own a pair of old tabletop hmvs plus an Aeolian vocalion. In my opinion, the bigger the horn the better it sounds... although one cannot get rid of that horrible ringing of some acoustic records except by muffling the sound with a cushion placed into the horn. In the AV this works wonders!

I own two pre-orthophonic machines. A Sonora and a tabletop Victrola. The music they produce sounds about the same to me. My Edison A250 from the same era sounds quite a bit better. Especially playing an electrically recorded Edison record. Bata-max was really better than VHS.

All depends on the horn. My 111 model Victrola and ones that came along during the early 1920s had the biggest horns of any of their cabinet models pre-orthophonic.

I've never understood why Victor/HMV used the Exhibition for 20 yrs.
Even by 1910 there were much better soundboxes being made by other companies, both domestic and foreign.
Pretty much any soundbox with a bigger diaphragm will sound as good as or better than an Exhibition