Gramophones, Phonographs, Victrolas....

[KilroyCD]

I respectfully submit that one should generally stay away from these "repro" crank phonographs from India. They are cheaply built and their performance and reliability is lacking.

LOL, I must have gotten one of their mistakes! It plays well (but as I said earlier, it doesn't sound as good as the VV-50). I was (and still am) contemplating putting a Victor No. 2 reproducer on it. I'll admit, the quality isn't there, but I knew what I was getting into when I bought it (which was mainly for decoration). I was a bit surprised at how well mine worked right out of the box.

 

[Alon]

One more question...

Can these old Victrolas from the 1920's play records from the 60's and 70's, too? Or can they only play the records from their own era?

 

[KilroyCD]

Can these old Victrolas from the 1920's play records from the 60's and 70's, too? Or can they only play the records from their own era?

The old Victrolas play 78 rpm records. The records from the 60s and 70s will be 45rpm or 33 1/3rpm, so they will not play (at least correctly) on the Victrola. Also, even if they were the same speed, the heavy tone arm of the Victrola would quickly damage the record.

 

[Alon]

Blimey! I was hoping to have one machine to play all record types. Is there such a thing?

Is 78 the rotations per minute? Or does it have to do something with the size of the record? When I went to see the Victrola, the records he played on it were smaller than the records I have which date to the 70s or so.

 

[KilroyCD]

Blimey! I was hoping to have one machine to play all record types. Is there such a thing?

Is 78 the rotations per minute? Or does it have to do something with the size of the record? When I went to see the Victrola, the records he played on it were smaller than the records I have which date to the 70s or so.

To answer your first question, yes, there are such machines. There are a number of models available, but they're modern-made. Most have a retro look though. Here's a website with some: http://www.retrowonders.com/
You might also try to find an original three speed record player, and they can be found. You might want to try to look at flea markets, yard sales and the like.
The 78rpm does indeed refer to the revolutions per minute. Many 78rpm records were made in the popular 10-inch size, which will be smaller than the LPs you have.

 

[ScionPI2005]

I have a vintage Zenith CobraMatic made in the early 50's, and those models were made with a slider where you could pick either one of the four standard speeds (16, 33, 45, 78 rpm) or anyplace in between. I have also been able to play 78's, 45's, and 33's with the same needle in the unit.

 

[Flivver]

Many of the three or four speed turntables from the 1950s have a flip-over-type cartridge with two stylii...one for 78s and one for microgroove 45s and LPs. This allows 78s to be played back with low noise and prevents microgroove records from being damaged by the too-large 78 stylus.

Of course, if you want to hear stereo from stereo LPS you will need a stereo cartridge, although stereo records can be played without damage with a microgroove stylus in a mono cartridge.

If you really get into extracting the best sound from your records, various types of 78s require different stylii dimensions to match their grooves. These are still available from specialty houses.

And, prior to 1954, the recording industry used many different equalization curves for records, depending on the manufacturer. A preamplfier with continuously variable equalization curves can solve this problem. But this is probably beyond where most listeners care to go!

 

[LizzieMaine]

A really good choice for playing all types of records in reasonably decent quality and at a reasonable cost is to find a secondhand school room phonograph such as a Califone or a Newcomb. These usually have all speeds from 16 to 78rpm, and are equipped with flipover styli. Some can even accomodate 16 inch transcriptions. They also have a good, strong, full sound and often have output jacks for extension speakers.

They can often be found extremely cheap at school surplus sales. They aren't so cheap on eBay anymore, but can still be found if you search carefully.

It's been noted before, but is always worth noting again, that it can be very risky to play your 78s on a vintage acoustic phono -- unless the dry, hardened rubber gaskets and damper blocks in the reproducer have been replaced, the needle won't be able to move properly in the groove. The sound quality will suffer, and so will the surface of your records! (This is also true of the earliest electrical phonographs with heavy horseshoe-magnet pickups.)

I'll second airgrabber's warning about repro acoustic phonographs. Most of these are actually made in India using stripped suitcase portables from the 50s or 60s as the main source of parts, and are generally of very dodgy quality.

 

[Alon]

Hmmm... it's a tough call, but being an antique lover, I'd rather stick to a vintage piece. My purpose is to have a machine to play classical (and particularly operatic) recordings from the first half of the 20th century. A 78-playing Victrola should serve my purpose just fine, right?

Do 78s come in different sizes? The table top Victrola that I found seems quite small and I wonder if the larger records fit on the turn table.

Thank you for your great help!

 

[scotrace]

Lizzie's advice is excellent, through and through.

 

[Anthony]

Here's my Victor 50. Now spinning Johann Strauss "Blue Danube Waltz"!

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[scotrace]

Not with the needle on that side of the record...

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Not with the needle on that side of the record...

But it is telling him Satanic things.....I bet.

Buy that modern suit....Buy that modern suit....

 

[Dr Doran]

Recent acquisition. The red rubber gasket in the arm is old and cracked; and I cannot figure out how to get the tone arm at the right angle; otherwise, everything is fine.

 

[scorp79]

Victrola

Hey everyone... Brand new here & thought I'd share my most recent, (really my 1st ever) purchase... A 1923 Victrola! My grandpa used to play a lot of old music for me when I was little and the older I got, the more I loved it! I'm planning a Golden Era wedding and a fellow bride from the area was selling this baby for $60! I jumped on it. Apparently, her Great Aunt Fern was a lounge singer back in the 20's and it belonged to her. I also have about 300 records now, just sitting in crates until I buy sleeves for them. Glad to be here!

 

[Dr Doran]

Phenomenal, and welcome!

 

[Flivver]

Hey everyone... Brand new here & thought I'd share my most recent, (really my 1st ever) purchase... A 1923 Victrola! My grandpa used to play a lot of old music for me when I was little and the older I got, the more I loved it! I'm planning a Golden Era wedding and a fellow bride from the area was selling this baby for $60! I jumped on it. Apparently, her Great Aunt Fern was a lounge singer back in the 20's and it belonged to her. I also have about 300 records now, just sitting in crates until I buy sleeves for them. Glad to be here!

Looks like you have a Victrola VV-240 there. It was made between 1922-1925 and sold for $115.00. This is the lowest priced of a family of what were called "humpback Victrolas" due to their unique design.

At this time, Victor considered themselves the undisputed leader of the talking machine world, but smaller competitors (and the advent of radio broadcasting) were eating into their sales. Those smaller competitors were enjoying great success with "modern" looking flat top phonographs where the record storage compartment was placed beside the phonograph mechanism and horn rather than beneth it as in the classic upright Victrola. This was the first major change to the proportions of a phonograph console the public had seen since the introduction of the original Victrola in 1906.

Because Victor was the leader, they felt they couldn't copy these upstart competitors, but they wanted a piece of the sales the side-by-sides were earning. The humpback Victrola, like the 240, was Victor's answer. Unfortunately, it proved unpopular. Housewives didn't like it because it had no flat surfaces other than the lid upon which to place a lamp or flower vase.

This market mis-calculation was one of a series of mis-steps that severely injured this once proud company. It wasn't until 1925, with the introduction of the Orthophonic Victrola, that things began to turn around (albeit briefly) for Victor.

Personally, I like the humpbacks for their unique, if unloved, design.

 

[scorp79]

Yes, it was one of the 'lower-class' models back then... But I think it's cute and it still works perfectly. It's the sound that gets me. I think this particular one was about the 33,000 one made out of 60-some thousand. It's fun to imagine the history that comes with something like this. I was playing a record the night I got it and dancing around the room... My boyfriend was looking at me like I was crazy, (he was trying to watch Basketball.) I told him "Honey... Imagine in 80 years from now if someone was dancing around their house to an Ipod and amazed that those things still worked." (Not like it would because they break every few years or so.) Then he got why I was so amazed myself.

 

[scotrace]

There are few moments as wonderful as dancing close around the room with your sweetheart to lovely music from a Victrola. Unforgettable.

 

[MrFusion]

I collect and restore (mechanically) Victors and Victrolas as a hobby; or at least I did. I started getting too many machines and ran out of places to put them!
I'm still amazed at the sound you can get from a wind-up record player. I have an Orthophonic that I am finishing up and it is amazing how loud it is.
I do need to get a suitcase Victrola though.