Carsten's video demonstrating the performance of an Edison DD played
thru the big orthophonic horn of a Victor 10-50 by way of an adapted
Brunswick Ultona is very informative. It's just the thing I was going to
try some years ago, but I was too lazy in getting around to it and Carsten
beat me to it. Good on him.
I have said in the past and I continue to say that most of the Edison
horns were very primitive and FAR from the best implementation of horn
technology, even for their day. Considering that these simple horns were
used all the way up into the later 1920s when the superior exponential types
were already being marketed by competitors, there is just no excuse for them
other than they were cheap to make. The cygnet horns were among Edison's
better designs, with the jute horns of the Amberola 1A and 1B being the best
of the Edison designs. The DD horns were several steps backwards from those
and are really nothing more than conical horns curved and flattened. They
are comprised of essentially a straight sided (not curved) flare from the
reproducer down to where the bell is attached, whereupon the flare changes
to a wider one but it is still straight while being flattened into an oval
bell. This is a completely unsophisticated design that was easy to
manufacture. Consequently, they don't sound like anything special to my
ears and their simple design explains why.
The exponential horn design is readily demonstrable as being superior to
any of the Edison horns. Which is just one reason why those acoustic phonos
that employed some version of an exponential horn curried more favor among
listeners and buyers over the Edison products in the waning days of the
Edison Phonograph Co. Edison's last acoustic development of the Edisonic
was just more of the same. The Edisonic horn is the same design as all the
earlier DD horns, just a little longer. Which merely lowers the honk
frequency a bit.
A friend of mine, Tom Kimble who is a mechanical engineer and phono
collector, has taken the initiative and designed a genuinely, mathematically
correct exponential cygnet horn and fitted it to an Amberola 50 motor
mechanism and mounted in a custom cabinet. As an engineering demonstration,
it was purposely designed to have the same length and bell area as the
popular Edison 12-panel cygnet metal horn so as to provide a direct
comparison of the technical advantage of the exponential design over the
less sophisticated design of the legacy cygnet. Tom also developed a clever
pantograph double crane suspension system that provides minimal mechanical
loading of the carriage as it has to carry the horn across the record. Also
better than Edison's designs. He calls his machine the "Ediphonic" which I
find entirely appropriate. Some phono collectors consider such a machine
derisively to be a "frankenphone", but I consider it to be the epitome of
how good an Edison machine COULD have sounded if he had taken the trouble to
put a proper exponential horn on his phonographs. Here is a video of the
Ediphonic playing two cylinders, one a blue amberol and one a newly
manufactured cylinder from Norm Bruderhofer which has a wider frequency
range recorded than any of the early acoustic records. Note the continuous
curvture of the horn as opposed to the straight flare of the typical Edison
horn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhLjcfswHb0
Note the smoothness and extension of the frequency response both in the bass
and treble with very little peakiness or honkiness in the midrange which is
typically heard from lesser horns. The vocal is very natural sounding. The
reproducer is an Edison Diamond B with a custom diaphragm and a Pfanstiehl
diamond stylus bar assembly which he and I have both found to be superior to
the original Edison design because it has lower moving mass which reduces
distortion and blasting. Unfortunately, Pfanstiehl no longer makes this
stylus. Tom and I stocked up on them while we could still get them.
Back to Carsten's video - here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zQw4K80QtM
I think it sounds pretty good. There is a little blasting and distortion,
probably due to some record wear and some mistracking due to insufficient
tracking force and perhaps a bit of tonearm friction. But the sound is
smooth, especially so considering the first record was an acoustic
recording. Yes, the details of the implementation of using the Brunswick
reproducer in the Victor tonearm may be contributing to some mistracking
issues, but I doubt that using an Edison reproducer would sound very much
different. My experimentation with reproducers and horns has confirmed what
I had suspected that the horn is a MUCH bigger contributor to the overall
sound quality than the difference between very good reproducers of somewhat
different designs. So long as the reproducer has a decent design with an
acceptably damped resonance and it doesn't produce significant mistracking
(blasting), the sounds of good reproducers are pretty similar. Contrary to
how some listeners yammer on about one tiny detail over another
insignificant one, it's not rocket science. The main variables in designing
an acoustic reproducer (which are significantly different from those
required for a modern phono pickup) are determining where the system
resonance is placed and keeping the moving mass low enough while still
providing sufficient compliance at the needle tip to produce minimum
mistracking. Higher resonant frequencies due to stiffer diaphragms shift
the response peak higher and produce a squawkier sound. The trick is to
find a pleasant frequency at which to place the resonance and then damp it
properly without killing the efficiency (loudness) of the reproducer.
Slight variations in the resonant frequencies is the main audible difference
among reproducers.
Greg Bogantz
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Baron" <a...@popyrus.com>
To: "Antique Phonograph List" <phono-l@oldcrank.org>
Cc: "Big Sky Learning" <bigskylearn...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2014 10:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Phono-L] Orthophonic vs. Electric?
Hi Ron and all ~
Using a Kent adapter or similar device, yes, much easier, and the reverse
of my supposition. It seems to me that a test done in both directions
would be more informative than one or the other in isolation. Steve
Medved just brought this fascinating YouTube video to my attention, to be
shared as part of this discussion, attributed to Carsten Fischer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zQw4K80QtM
It's an interesting video and certainly the methods represent
out-of-the-box, if not pseudo-scientific thinking: The Edison side of a
salvaged Brunswick Ultona reproducer housing (with the full needle bar,
similar to the Edison needle bar, etc.), other side (lateral side)
eliminated and blocked off (ostensibly sealed against air leaks), and a
short connecting tube to mate it to Victor 10-50 (!), to take advantage of
the folded exponential horn. The modified Brunswick housing is equipped
with a Victor Orthophonic Duralumin diaphragm (in hill-and-dale mode), and
the presenter adds silent editorial comments as superimposed text,
allowing the sound he recorded with a small condenser mic to let us hear
the result. Very hard, even with larger speakers to get a sense of the
real value of the experiment, which expect is due to the limitations of
his recording method.
Other limiting factors, or at least factors that make this somewhat less
than an apples to apples test, is that the Brunswick system, or in this
case the Brunswick parts adapted to the Victor arm) doesn't quite
replicate the Edison Diamond Disc machine's tracking compliance in at
least two ways: (a) I suspect that the compliance of the stylus to the
groove would be adversely affected by the tracking force necessarily
including the mass of the modified apparatus plus a portion of the
Victor's tone arm (rather than as in the Edison system of it being limited
to the tracking weight distributed more uniformly around the stylus), and
(b) the necessity in this setup of the groove having to propel the entire
equipment across as the record plays rather than the "floating"
arrangement of the automatic tracking Edison DD system.
I think these factors might combine to make for a more rigid, and quite
possibly less responsive arrangement of groove, stylus and transferred
acoustic energy to the horn. I think it's a fascinating choice to use the
paper-thin Victor Duralumin diaphragm. The presenter tells us that mica
will also work, but one can imagine it would narrow the dynamic range.
However the mounting of the diaphragm as can be seen might possibly be
hampered by an oversized retaining insulator, which also looks rather
thick and one or both of these could impede the response.
Another aspect that was bothering me a little was that the turntable dips
and rises as it spins around (bent platter, as the spindle remains
relatively true). This would have the effect of alternately adding and
subtracting from whatever norm in the diaphragm's loading that the
presenter was able to achieve with this modified arrangement of parts.
The up and down, added to the more rigid load of also having to move the
entire mass of reproducer and tone arm (add another intermediate joint in
the Victor arm to the equation for the vertical accommodation of the
uneven platter, and whatever differences in compliance and greater
side-wall groove contact might be present, and for me it starts to be an
interesting but not very accurate measure of how an Edison record, played
as engineered, would sound through one of the large Orthophonic horns. I
also have to wonder about the "plumbing" between the tone arm and the
horn, and if this might also be a factor?
Steve, Greg, others, are there other things I may be missing here? In the
short term this video remains a fascinating study of one approach to
answering the question about Edison DD through Orthophonic horn and you
certainly have to credit the presenter with taking the time to investigate
and document his findings. It would be interesting to take a purer
approach, using a true DD reproducer, tracking as designed, and airtight,
low-loss connection to the top of a Credenza or similarly large
Orthophonic horn. Perhaps measure the difference in response with ears as
well as spectrum analyzer...
Andrew Baron
Santa Fe
On Mar 16, 2014, at 6:58 PM, Ron L'Herault wrote:
Doing the comparison the other way around is easier, an orhtophonic
record
on an Edison DD with a good lateral adaptor and Orthophonic reproducer.
Ron L
-----Original Message-----
From: phono-l-boun...@oldcrank.org [mailto:phono-l-boun...@oldcrank.org]
On
Behalf Of Andrew Baron
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2014 5:37 PM
To: Antique Phonograph List
Subject: Re: [Phono-L] Orthophonic vs. Electric?
When comparing the Edison DD to a Victor Orthophonic, it's best to think
of
them in terms of their complete systems rather than the horn of one vs.
the
horn of the other. Wouldn't it be an interesting experiment to connect
the
output of an Edison DD reproducer on an Edison DD phonograph playing one
of
the better DD records, to the input of a Victor Credenza horn? It
wouldn't
necessarily be a marriage made in heaven (I assume it would be quite a
mismatch of impedances, or the acoustic analog thereof), but it would be
interesting to observe.
The systems that each company independently employed (Edison DD; Victor
Orthophonic) obviously have no physical resemblance whatsoever, neither
horn
nor reproducer nor tone arm, and yet sonically the Edison was way ahead
of
the pack until the Orthophonic machines came out. There's just no
comparison
when comparing an especially good Edison DD record (with quiet surface)
played on an upscale Edison DD machine, with ANY of the contemporary
competitors for sheer naturalness of tone and overtones that the DD
system
was capable of.
The DD machines had superior sound in 1913, by far, than anything else
until
a dozen years later when the Orthophonic came out. And even then, the
right
record on a good DD machine will give an Orthophonic Credenza a run for
its
money, even records made acoustically in the early 'teens compared to
electric recordings in the mid '20s. Though the right record on a
Credenza
will often edge out the Edison, it's can be a close race in some cases,
and
a little like the Volvo Amazon outrunning the Ferrari in the celebrated
YouTube video. Edison had a truly souped-up acoustic system developed by
the end of 1912, that in real life would be unfair to compare to the
electric system of 1925, and yet, the Edison system can hold its own in
this
chronologically and technologically skewed contest.
Andrew Baron
Santa Fe
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