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Greetings. I'm restoring an Edison Edisonic Schubert, and I can't quite figure out how to re-attach the lid brace, which was detached when I found the machine. I know that the top screw plate (labeled "A" in picture #4) is supposed to attach to the underside of the lid (see holes in picture 5), and that the lower screw plate (labeled "B" in picture 4) is supposed to attach to the holes way down below and behind the motor and horn (pictures 6 and 7), and they do line up, but I'm not sure which way the elbow is supposed to curve (toward the front, or back? As you can see, it swivels), nor what I'm supposed to do with the spring. Is this even the correct lid brace for this machine? Can someone post pictures of theirs? Any and all help and tips would be appreciated.

One more question: I have heard that the Edisonics shipped with a different kind of reproducer, but mine just looks like a regular nickel-plated diamond disc reproducer. How can I tell the difference?

Thanks!

1. I had the same problem with my Schubert, and posted a similar query here. Take some time searching the forum and you’ll likely find the thread and the answers and the supporting photos.

It’s a terrible design and doesn’t work well, which is likely why you find them detached like this.

I dumped mine years ago for a few reasons, of which the lid stay was one.

2. The Edisonic reproducer looks like the rest of them except with a much larger weight, one that is fully rounded at the business end, rather than having squared sides that make it closer to rectangular. There is also a little counterspring that attaches to the stylus via a little hook. The Dance reproducer looks almost exactly like the Edisonic except that the throat bolts to the diaphragm shell via a flange.

You will be fine, perhaps even better off, with the one that came with it. The Dance and Edisonic are too loud in most cases, and the Schubert has no mute ball volume control to mitigate that.

< and now for the snarky part >

If you prefer to look at, rather than play, your machine, by all means go to great expense and effort to find an Edisonic reproducer in the correct finish to match the horn neck. You must also get it rebuilt, and pick the rebuilder carefully because certain of them can’t or won’t deal with the little counterspring - thus rendering your unit inauthentic.

You must also, of course, obtain a supply of electrically-recorded diamond discs - ostensibly catalog numbers 52089 and above with a few stray exceptions - to assure even further authenticity.

< snark off >

Many users find and mount the metal reproducer storage brackets - single or double - that were originally made available for use on machines equipped with the LP system, to allow one to have a choice of reproducers quickly available.

Bottom line is, fiddle around til you get the results that please you, and this can be on a record by record basis. You have a proven system that sounds great, although claims for vastly superior sound on this final longer-necked horn are mostly marketing puffery. The Edisonic plus electrical recording merely combines to make everything louder - often unbearably.

I have a memo that I copied from the Edison archives while there with Ron Dethlefson about 30 years ago, where Edison wrote that he’d heard the then-new orthophonic system from Victor, and that all it accomplished was to increase loudness. He then directed his people to find a way to make their system louder in response.

Well we all know he was quite deaf by then, so the incredible improvement in sound quality from the ortho was lost on him. But louder was something he could perceive, a lot less painfully than the rest of us.

Guessing that the mute ball was deleted for cost purposes, or maybe because the horn was now too far away for it to operate easily.

Went and found that old thread, from 2014 (!) and it’s not going to help you. The photos have been lost.

Experiment. But be careful not to strip the mount-point holes as you put the thing off and on. The location of the attachment point for the spring’s other end escapes me.

I recall giving up on the thing and just setting the lid against the wall with a handy piece of felt cloth in between to prevent marks.

Be really careful with the grille and grille cloth. Grill comes out the top, sliding straight up with the lid open. After removing the obvious ones on the front of the grill, you must also find and remove two additional small hidden screws. They are on the top edge of the back side of the grille, accessible from the inside of the phonograph compartment and facing towards the front of the machine.

Speed control adjustment is very difficult, having required a special tool that you don’t have and probably can’t make. They do possess the clever “shock proof” governor, added to the same old tried-and-true mechanism that had been used for over a decade. Pro tip, you can therefore easily slip in a second spring barrel to add to your playing time. Especially valuable if you’re like me, and abhor winding phonographs.

Look for a fade line in the grille cloth, that happened through the crack between the two doors.

Schuberts are the sad artifacts of the last gasp of a once-great enterprise.

*’turntable’, not “platter”. ‘Platter’ is a post-WWII slang term from the hi-fi era, and not historically appropriate/respectful.

The finish on your reproducer should be antique bronze, not nickel. Find the appropriate Edisonic reproducer — that’s what it is supposed to have. Designed to play electrical recordings.

PeterF wrote: Mon Feb 02, 2026 1:22 am Schuberts are the sad artifacts of the last gasp of a once-great enterprise.

Indeed the build quality of the Shubert cabinet is not up to the standard of the best Edison machines, however it (and its Beethoven counterpart) carry the same sturdy mechanics as their predecessors, and it produces the best sound of all diamond disc machines produced, mainly due to its unique horn. As to the lid stay, I do not have problems with mine, it works well, I never had to disassemble it.

I opened the lid of my Schubert and took a photo looking down through the space by the bedplate. Will this be good enough? I can remove the grille and take one at a better angle, but I'd rather not if this will suffice. Yeah, lazy me!

In words, the crescent-shaped piece is attached at the bottom and curves out toward the front of the machine. The spring, in the photo just visible to the right of the assembly and kinda fuzzy, goes from a tab on the crescent-shaped piece to one on the bracket affixed to the cabinet at the top.

I wrote an article about Edison disc reproducers that includes a photo showing the different models. Perhaps that will help you sort them out--I hope so! https://www.tnt-audio.com/vintage/ediso ... ral_e.html

I edited both of my earlier posts just now, to clarify and add to what I had previously said. Please go back and look again.

One more pro tip on your restoration: be sure to take good care when handling the turn-table, sometimes disrespectfully mislabeled as “turntable.”
And if by chance you find, to your dismay, that some barbarian has substituted a “platter” in its place, gingerly remove that offensive object and fling it with all your might in the direction of Jerome, Arizona.

Egad, sir. Egad, I say!

JohnM wrote: Mon Feb 02, 2026 3:56 am *’turntable’, not “platter”. ‘Platter’ is a post-WWII slang term from the hi-fi era, and not historically appropriate/respectful.

The finish on your reproducer should be antique bronze, not nickel. Find the appropriate Edisonic reproducer — that’s what it is supposed to have. Designed to play electrical recordings.

Platter, platter, platter, platter, platter, platter, platter.

JerryVan wrote: Mon Feb 02, 2026 2:32 pm

JohnM wrote: Mon Feb 02, 2026 3:56 am *’turntable’, not “platter”. ‘Platter’ is a post-WWII slang term from the hi-fi era, and not historically appropriate/respectful.

The finish on your reproducer should be antique bronze, not nickel. Find the appropriate Edisonic reproducer — that’s what it is supposed to have. Designed to play electrical recordings.

Platter, platter, platter, platter, platter, platter, platter.

Too silly, too silly, quite agree. Get some discipline into those chaps, Sgt.-major!