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This is completely useless - but what fun! The source speaker is just a cheapie from Radio Shack, but I wanted to hear what could be done. Not clearly detailed sound (the speaker) - but the amplification and bass are remarkable.

See what lazy weekends lead to...

Nat

If you had one of those orthophonics with the built in radio you could easily patch a speaker into the horn valve.

I'd be curious to hear it.

Nat wrote:This is completely useless - but what fun! The source speaker is just a cheapie from Radio Shack, but I wanted to hear what could be done. Not clearly detailed sound (the speaker) - but the amplification and bass are remarkable.

See what lazy weekends lead to...

Nat

Hi Nat,

I've been looking for something like this for some time now. Would you mind sharing what parts you used to construct this item?

-Kevin

It's funny you tried this as I decided to try something similar awhile back. My wife doesn't quite enjoy the music I play on my phonographs as much as I do. So using a junk Diamond Disc reproducer top I had, I found a solution for her. I epoxied a 2-¼ inch speaker to the rim of the reproducer top with the speaker facing upward. The speaker was wired with a mini connector on the end just like a pair of headphones have. So now she can open the lid of my C-250, plug the wire into her iPhone or mp3 player and play the music she likes to listen to using my DD machines as her amplifier. Here is the reproducer:

Quite clever ideas. A former friend of mine had one side of a headphone to a spare no. 4 reproducer (sans mica diaphragm of course) on his HMV 162 in the dining room and used that for background music during dinner parties. A proper 20s musical background without the need to change discs every 3 minutes. The tapes he played were transfers from 78s from his own collection. The whole thingamagig cost no more than 50 old Dutch Guilders. And with the lid closed no-one saw or heard the difference.

syncopeter wrote:A former friend of mine had one side of a headphone to a spare no. 4 reproducer (sans mica diaphragm of course) on his HMV 162 in the dining room and used that for background music during dinner parties.

I have thought about doing something similar to your friends setup on a Victor reproducer but never got around to it. I really enjoy tinkering with anything so may give the Victor reproducers some more thought.

I only had to spend $5.00 on my setup for the Diamond Disc reproducer. The top of the reproducer was in a box of parts given to my by a friend of mine as he had no use for them. I bought the speaker at a store locally that sells everything for $5.00 or less. It worked well and was cheaper than most of my other random ideas for those rainy days!

Although I've never had one, I think that brand of radio adapter that works by simply lowering the needle onto a heavy base with a vibrating part at the top with a groove in it to receive the needle, is pretty neat. It would be nice if someone made a modern version of one of those -- it would be more or less universal (perhaps a lateral/vertical switch?), portable, and wouldn't involve clumsy modifications or even removing a reproducer. Sonny . . . ?

Pretty interesting how we all got to this so recently. I just did the last modifications on my audioplug, which now works pretty good.

I also tried one of these tiny active speakers and they really do not provide any good reproduction through the horn, causing too much resonance. So I stick to use a spare speaker and sat down for an hour to assemble a simple amplifier. The little speaker can now fill my over 7 ft long living room.

With some little added bass the sound of a modern 78rpm transfer is very close its acoustic reproduction on my machine.

I still have to make some minor changes to the circuitry for safely mixing both channel into a mono signal without shorting my cellphone's headphone output.

WDC wrote:The little speaker can now fill my over 7 ft long living room.

Mmm. My XI with Exhibition and soft-tone needle will break glass at 7 feet. Well, almost. Maybe you meant 17? 27? 70?