Double gramophone sound box - Oranola

[JHolmesesq]

I've noticed this unusual double gramophone soundbox on eBay - I've never seen anything like it before. Has anyone got any information about this? I presume it was some marketing gimmick to make the sound twice as loud.

What gramophone did it use?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Unusual-Gramophon ... 230e29508c

[Brad]

I have never seen anything like that. I would imagine that the frequency bandpass would be different for each repro, with the farther one away being in the lower frequency range.

It would be an interesting oddity to have and futz with. Let us know if you get it.

[Retrograde]

do a google on "Oranola"

Oranola

Isn't this in one of the F&P books?

[estott]

I can't recall the name but there was a UK firm that made a line of machines using this design. It was a gimmick.

[gramophoneshane]

Duophone used a similar soundbox which attached to a double gooseneck tonearm. I've never heard one in person, but from what I've been told they work quite well. Apparently much better than any of the dual tonearm/soundbox machines that came before it, so I'm not sure it was pure gimmick.

[phonojim]

I think I've seen this in Christopher Proudfoot's book.

Jim

[Odeon]

I also watched this item on ebay.....
It is very similar to the Duophone soundbox in the UK.
Sadly I never heard one in real.

Here you see the Duophone soundbox and tonearm on a Duophone
Label. I found this in the net and made a closeup of the soundbox.

Duophone-1.jpg (94.89 KiB) Viewed 3028 times

With this page you see a Duophone gramophone. They seem to be rare today - it´s the only one I found in the deep of the net.....

http://www.phonograph-gramophone-collec ... _index.htm

Click in the link on "Details" to see some closeups of the soundbox.

Also the "Gramophone Magazine" in the UK wrote a article about the Duophone in October 1923:

THE DUOPHONE

THE Duophone is an instrument with two sound-boxes, each of which delivers its quota of sound to the tone arm, one of the sound boxes being tuned for high and the other for low notes. It is claimed that by this means it is possible to deal adequately with a longer range of tones than has hitherto been feasible.

I would not care to hazard an opinion as to the correctness of this theory. Acoustics is a subject about which not much appears to be known. Its theory is difficult, and in many points its practice does not conform very closely with that theory. No doubt a few learned physicists, whose lightest thought is a differential equation, know so much theory and know it so exactly that they are even able sometimes to apply it successfully, like Professor MeKendrick, who invented a gramophone in which he entirely eliminated scratch by passing the sound through forty feet of tubing filled with peas ; the peas absorbed all the scratch and nearly all the other sound. What remained of the other sound was then magnified by valves, and the result is said to have been absolutely perfect.

Whatever be the theory of the Duophone, in practice it is an admirable machine. It is beautifully made with a most convenient method of stopping by pressing a button on the outside of the case. The tone is very full and solid, and it is a fact that it renders exceptionally well a long range of tones. It is particularly good on piano records, indeed I think I never heard an instrument which got so much out of an ordinary needle-cut piano record. Its rendering, too, of vocal records is exceedingly faithful and very pleasing in quality.

On other classes of records, too, it showed itself a first-class instrument, and it can be trusted to get the best out of any record offered to it.

I think they had been even better results, if they used two tonearms and horns, instead of only one horn.

[JHolmesesq]

Interesting record label - I've got some duophone discs but none of them show that.

I don't think I will be bidding on it Brad - I haven't got a machine to use it on! If I had the time I would love to cannibalise a horn from a broken suitcase portable and somehow adapt this double soundbox for mine. It would be interesting to see how it sounded.

[gramophoneshane]

JH, that label was the first used by Duophone, from August 1925 until Sept 1926. They were pressed by Vocalion & became obsolete once Duophones "unbreakable" records were introduced in Sept 1926. It was used on the original pressings of No's 5000- 5161.

[estott]

According to Proudfoot the double tonearm ends at the neck of the horn, so it's a visual gimmick.