Edison Phonograph cylinders

I know, they were produced like that all the way till 1929 weren't they? I'm just inquiring about the potential of each medium, fidelity wise.

 

My great Uncle had a nice collection of Edison blue cylinders, and a player. I loved listening to those old recordings. I think it is great that you are keeping this technology alive. Keep us posted if you are lecturing anywhere. Welcome!

 

Well, with a cylinder there's no inner-groove distortion, for a start. But cylinders always seemed wow-prone. At least many of those I've heard. I don't have Ron Dethlefson's books on the Edison records and players to know a lot about them. I do know that in September 1927, the DDs began to be recorded electrically at 78 rpm.

When I was about 8 years old, the principal of the elementary school I attended gave me a DD and a BA cylinder. No-one in the family had a cylinder player, or had access to one. My parents told me not to try to play it, in fear I'd damage it. But several months after I was given these records, between having two small manual phonographs, an old pencil, a wooden pulley, the core of an 8 track cartridge, and a small bit of rubber tubing strategically placed over the 78 step of the motor shaft of one of the machines, I devised a way to play the cylinder at close to 160 rpm, without damage. My dad was so surprised, he took a Polaroid photo of my contraption in action. It was the first thing I ever devised, that worked more or less as I'd hoped it would.

 

I had done some response tests awhile back. The matter is what an original reproducer is capable of reproducing they can handle from 200-3,000 cps roughly. Electrically you can record ,and this is conservative, 40-6000cps with a fairchild cutting head, driving an 1898 Edison stylus (this is done with a linkage from the driver to the cutting stylus, which is on a floating weight on a hinged stylus bar the weight has extra weight added to not bounce off the record. High frequency of wax varies on how hard it is, a harder wax records higher frequencies better, but has problems with the lows, as lifts happen. You must heat the wax to around 90 degrees for the best sound quality. The temperature is so important to making good cylinder recording, and is over loooked by so many trying to make amature tests. The heating of the cylinder makes worlds of difference in volume, frequency response, SN ratio, and blasting. You can find the best temperature by starting by heating the cylinder up to 90 degrees, checking for echo during playback, (echo means you are too hot, Columbia did this a lot.) Bring the temp down to the point of a good record with the least amount of echo. The wide range, Edisonic electrically recorded cylinder I made in experiments though are exellent if you have an Edisonia electric reproducer for your cylinder player, and actually has as much bass as an LP record, and you will feel it, and suprisingly clear highs. I will have to dig though my experiments, and post them somewhere, they are of copyrighted material, however and I don't need trouble. It was only for a study, Hound Dog by Elvis Presley which is a pretty good sounding track, you can hear the bass, and the ride cymbol in the cylinders. It was played back with a Stanton cartridge with 2 minute glass stylus. The Archeophone
Archive device is good for these too ($12,000.00). Yes the cylinders can be tweaked with a LOt of work to be of very high fidelity. The cylinders in the early days, had the clearest highs, with cymbol shimmer, and silibants able to be recorded. Berliner discs, however were midrangy at best, and a good imaginatin is needed to guess what is being said. The hardest thing to overcome in the cylinder players is flutter this is from the cylinder being out of round, or imperfections in the celluloid or the wax, mechanically the governor must be carefully balanced, as most of the trouble is found there. Yes Blue Amberols were produced to 1929, and the last titles in the 5,000 sereis were electrically dubbed from needle records, however not all of them, many were acoustically dubbed. BA's from 1914-up are all dubbes from Diamond disc, done through long skinny horns.

 

Thank you for that.

 

I must make an apology. I have struggled with dyslexia all my life, so spelling and grammar have always been a problem with me. I can read and compreheand at a 31 year grade level. However when I write, my answers are very short. I work 10-12 hours a day, and my checking out of formums ect. leave little time for me to cover up my shortcomings in these areas. I hope those on here do not judge me by this. Thomas Edison was a great man, however one of his biggest fears, was speaking in public. He invented or improved, practically every kind of microphone that is used today, Condenser, ribbon and dynamic, as well as many strange ones that never made it big, like the electromotograph speaker that used a large mica diaphragm, and spinning chalk, some short Circuting ones, others that use carbon and silk, some use graphite and other things too numerous to mention. You can find most of this out by obtaining a copy of "Menlo Park Reminiscences" by Fracis Jhel. The Melo Park was a multi-part set biography by Jhel, a very loyal Edison assistant, who started working with Edison shortly after the invention of the Phonograph. The original Bell phone actually used a diaphragm with a needle in the center, immersed in liquid, the speaker was a viabrating metal reed, with telegraph like coils.

 

Thanks for the wealth of info. It's especially interesting to hear about high fidelity experiments of a format that in the end lost out to flat discs. For me, all types of recording formats have their own particular charm.

I picked up a cylinder player a few years ago and it's been a fun (unplugged) hobby. Being able to hear this kind of music in its original form is really special.