The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Did someone post not long ago offering electric reproducers for Edison cylinder machines? I would be interested in learning more.

you can build 1 yourself with the lower fishtail assembly of a Model "C" using a gramophone electric pickup. The wire going to the stylus bar is pushed into the needle port of the needle armature in the pickup head which needs to sit above , perhaps in a turned brass or plastic (Delrin or nylon )cup or a 3D printed type that fits the Edison carriage. I'm half way with 1 of these at present & have found that the H.M.V hyper sensitive pickup from the late 1930's that takes miniature steel needles such as the Columbia 99's is a good candidate due to it's small size & needle port of 0.9mm . There is a page on-line that shows an Ediphone , Dictaphone reproducing weighted section mounted on an earlier pickup which is a clunkier way of constructing this, see link
https://www.christerhamp.se/phono/diy-edison.html
hope this is useful

There have been many versions of electric reproducers over the years. Only 1 or 2 of these had any kind of significant production. Most are variations of modern cartridges. AFAIK, none are currently available.

Curious. What are the 2 types?

Here is probably the granddad of electric pickups. It's a Sykes Electrograph from 1936. It was produced in England and not very common
to find over here. The few I have seen for sale were in England. I doubt it was a big seller as by 1936 the cylinder was pretty much a dead recording medium even
in England.
This is mine mounted on an Edison Standard B It's designed to play Blue Amberols as the stylus and weight assembly is taken from a Diamond B reproducer. Rebuilt and adjusted it surprisingly sounds good.
Only drawback is if the record is even slightly out of round you hear the bump-bump much more than on acoustic playback. It seems virtually every Blue Anberol is
just enough out of round to be annoying to listen to. I found the best records are Columbia, US Everlasting or similar celluloid records sound the best.

Chuck

We’ve been offering the ACT-2/Edisonia Electric cylinder reproducers off and on since 1998.

Sometimes available through myself, sometimes through my business partner & co-inventor Peter Liebert.

Fits in place of an Edison C or H reproducer.

You can use any custom stylus mounted to a Stanton 500 compatible assembly. Currently we are only able to include a 4-minute stylus (which will also play any 2-minute celluloid [not wax] cylinder records.

I’ve just made up another small run of parts…likely the last as the Stanton 500 cartridge I use has been out of production for many years and NOS parts are getting harder to find at prices I can justify purchasing.

I plan to have reproducers available at the upcoming Wayne show (at Peter Liebert’s table).

Pm or email [email protected] if interested or if you have questions. You’ll have to be patient as I generally only check email / messages once a week or so.

-Rob
(The dust on the record/stylus is from the record sitting on the phonograph unplayed for a couple years, not from the stylus wearing the celluloid! I didn't notice the dust before I uploaded the pic.)

that's really nice