The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

1901 Lioret also sold machines from other Phonograph manufacturers. Sometimes cases and/ or technical elements where modified. Here a French Graphophone Eagle variation (measurements are slightly different to the Eagle) sold by Lioret.
The most funny thing here is the reproducer. The Sahire is sitting on a spider system with 28 feet glued to a wooden mica.

The two horn device can be found also in combination with recording devices.

A very interesting and scarce Lioret. I've never seen that reproducer before. What a fascinating twist on the Bettini spider design! How does it sound?

To be honest. Sound with a Graphophone type reproducer would be better. I think that the wooden sound plate / mica has wound/ became dis-formed within last 120 years.

-juergen- wrote: Mon Aug 25, 2025 3:18 pm To be honest. Sound with a Graphophone type reproducer would be better. I think that the wooden sound plate / mica has wound/ became dis-formed within last 120 years.

How is the diaphragm built? Wood laminated over mica, or something else? Have you checked under the bezel?

- Bill

The reproducer was patented by Louis Castan, as you can see on this page of my site: https://www.phonorama.fr/reproducteurs-francais-p3.html
Julien

I just dissesembled the Castan Reproducer. The resonator is just 0,5 mm thick piece of wood.

Regarding wooden diaphragms:

On August 20, 1898, Hermann Wolff of Berlin registered diaphragms for phonographs, graphophones, and similar devices, consisting of a wooden or wood-like disc that could be coated with lacquer or similar material.

At that time, a certain Louis Castan, but there could be a case of identical names here, ran “Castan's Panopticum,” a wax museum, in Berlin.