English Viva-Tonal Console

[gregbogantz]

This could be a real interesting find:

eBay Item #220711340650

I have never seen any of the larger English Viva-Tonal machines. The horn appears to be a folded or re-entrant design and seems to be metal. Which would make it quite a lot different from any of the USA Columbia Viva-Tonal consoles. The price is right, too, for now. Somebody here should give this a good home and then report on how it compares with a similarly sized Victor.

[recordo]

Why can't we get these machines at these prices in Australia!?

[estott]

Interesting- the American machines never used the plano-reflex tone arm. Sometimes UK Columbia shared little more than the name with the US company.

[gramophoneshane]

These have a horn that divids into 2 seperate horns. A friend during high school had one.
If I remember correctly, OrthoFan posted a picture of this type of horn on one of the past forums.
Perhaps he still has the picture
They're a nice sounding machine, & I'd even say equal to my HMV 162 with saxophone horn, (and the Columbia is noticibly louder).
I guess by this stage of the game, acoustic machines in USA were begining to become obsolete, however in UK (& elsewhere) there was still a strong market for them, so the major companies were still trying to out-do one another with new ideas and designs??

[gramophoneshane]

Why can't we get these machines at these prices in Australia!?

Tell me about it
If I could get one of these for under $400, I'd count myself very lucky.

[estott]

These have a horn that divids into 2 seperate horns. A friend during high school had one.
If I remember correctly, OrthoFan posted a picture of this type of horn on one of the past forums.
Perhaps he still has the picture
They're a nice sounding machine, & I'd even say equal to my HMV 162 with saxophone horn, (and the Columbia is noticibly louder).
I guess by this stage of the game, acoustic machines in USA were begining to become obsolete, however in UK (& elsewhere) there was still a strong market for them, so the major companies were still trying to out-do one another with new ideas and designs??

You also see more UK machines in oak when it was going out in the US- HMV issued high end machines (equivalent of the VV XIV)in oak- something you just do not find over here where mahogany was favored.

[phonophan79]

For posterity sake...

[Edisone]

I'd feel cheated every time I saw that little horn behind the big opening! It appears to be the same horn(s) used in my tabletop VT Graf.

[OrthoFan]

These have a horn that divids into 2 seperate horns. A friend during high school had one.
If I remember correctly, OrthoFan posted a picture of this type of horn on one of the past forums. Perhaps he still has the picture

The horn photo appears in this thread:

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... f=9&t=3747

[syncopeter]

Most British Columbia post-1925 gramophones had that 2-part tone-arm with the funny 45 degree bends. That was probably as close as they could get to the Orthophonic/Re-entrant arms without infringing patent. The motor on this one looks to be Garrard.
Post-merger with HMV the gramophones were a virtual clone from the 102 portable, the funny thing is that the Columbia soundbox was cheaper to produce with equal sound quality and was sold as an HMV no 16.
The HMV model 102 portable was the best sounding compact wind-up gramophone, produced from 1931 to 1958!
The only one sounding better was this Columbia, but that was hardly portable, because it was three times heavier

viva-tonal-phonograph.JPG (35.14 KiB) Viewed 1557 times

. And it was loud!