The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Here is something I would normally not have bought but when I spotted the Garrard Super Motor, I thought it might come in handy especially at a silly low price.
I collected it from a lovely lady who told me her grandfather had hand built the gramophone and that it had broken down and not been used in decades. Her grandfather turned out to be John Samuel Loxton who is considered one of Australia’s best landscape painters.
On closer inspection the gramophone turned out to be based on the HMV 157. Garrard Super Motor, a generic swan neck tonearm, HMV No. 4 soundbox and what makes it like an HMV 157, a copy of a "double exponential re-entrant horn", a folded metal horn, divided into two sections, re-joining at the mouth.
With its prominence, I have decided to keep it as it is, even though it sound so much better with am HMV 5a soundbox.
I cleaned it up and repaired the motor. Here is a link to an article on my website, a video and a few pics.
https://www.gramophonemuseum.com/loxton-HMV%20157.html
https://youtu.be/g3VJ3_6kJts

Nice history!

Since it has this interesting artistic heritage, it's a good idea to keep it as is. However, since it sounds much better with a 5a (and it's no surprise, since the horn is basically that of a 157) I would consider acceptable to permanently fit a 5a and perhaps keep the N°4 that came with it stored inside the lid.

How interesting; and I wonder why John Loxton never got round to fitting a lid stay!

But Chunny, your history of the 157 is not quite right; it was indeed introduced earlier than the Re-entrants , but only by two months (September 1927 rather than November), and it was carefully NOT called 'Re-entrant' by the Gramophone Co. literature at that time. Nor did the Gramophone Co ever use the term 'Orthophonic'; that was a Victor name. Mahogany versions of both the 157 and the three Re-entrants were introduced in December 1927. The 157 was not replaced by the Re-entrants, it was a contemporary, cheaper alternative, and effectively outlived them, since although it and the Re-entrants did not survive 1933, the 153, which used the same bifurcated horn design, was sold from 1934 to 1939.

Very interesting machine. I wonder if he had access to a real 157, or whether it was made just using picture reference material? Glad it will live on as it has a unique story. Thanks

Thanks Oedipus. I'll update accordingly. Where did the term bifurcated horn come from?

Early Australian magazines are full of advertisements offering imported machine parts so people could fit out their own cabinets. A lot of local manufacturers used imported hardware for their products. I haven't come across any patterns yet, you never know.

'Bifurcated' is from Latin, and simply means forked two ways. I don't know who first applied it to gramophone horns; it is a term I have known for some fifty years, and it seems better than Columbia's absurd 'stereoscopic' for the same thing.