Wow, thanks John! You are the first person I've heard from who could
answer the question of what the Amberola I horns were made of. They don't
look like anything else I've ever seen - not wood, not metal, not leather,
not papier mache. But jute and gessoed! Hooda thunk? But they are fairly
well damped while still being relatively stiff. Both characteristics,
together with their purely coincidental fairly accurate shape contributing
their good sound. The fact that Edison never made another horn remotely as
good or of the same materials attests to the fact that he didn't really have
much of a clue regarding the mathematical science of acoustics.
I know, I know, I'm speaking heresy here. But he was an experimenter as
much as a scientist. His theory of the 200 foot recording horn was purely
silly. He admittedly didn't much like mathematics, so he rejected the
mathematically correct exponential horns developed by Western Electric in
the 1920s, leaving Victor and Columbia to make the most of this truly
forward-looking scientifically correct advance in acoustics. Also, I'm sure
he didn't want to pay any royalties to WE for the technology. Instead, he
continued to put poorly designed conical horns into his Edisonic machines
which pretty much continued to sound like his other DD machines except that
the longer neck produced a lower pitched honk. Too bad. His recording
technology, both acoustic and electric was top-notch, but buyers of his
acoustic phonos didn't get to appreciate his fine DD recordings unless and
until they purchased one of his electric C-1 or C-2 combination sets.
Greg Bogantz
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Maeder" <appywander at hotmail.com>
To: "Antique Phonograph List" <phono-l at oldcrank.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 6:24 PM
Subject: RE: [Phono-L] Amberola V Cabinet
The horns in I-A's are jute, stiffened with rabbit hide glue, then gessoed
and grain-painted. Thanks for all the responses regarding brown bed plates
on Amberola V's. Back in the 1970's, I knew an antiques dealer who
specialized in piano rolls and other musical stuff named Si Altman who lived
just East of Buffalo, NY. Si had a I-A with a blue top mech. It was
beautiful. Si is dead now and I don't know what happened to that machine.
Paul Baker can vouch for it. I've yet to see another, although I was
recently told that one was on eBay a couple of tears ago that may have gone
into Bob Johnson's collection. John
> From: gbogantz1 at charter.net
> To: phono-l at oldcrank.org
> Subject: Re: [Phono-L] Amberola V Cabinet
> Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:59:11 -0500
>
> I agree that the V is great, Al. I think the Amberola V is a highly
> undervalued machine by collectors. It has the second best motor made by
> Edison in the pre-fire period, second only to the Opera motor. It is
> quiet
> and has very low flutter due to its fairly massive flywheel and it's
> springy
> flutter-filter. The automatic shutoff is also a novel feature found only
> on
> the larger amberolas. The diamond B reproducer works very well with the V
> horn to produce the best audio that any of the Edison table models
> produced.
> The sound is better than any of the later amberolas 30, 50, or 75. I
> can't
> speak to the 60 and 80 models which had a much larger console cabinets
> than
> the others (London and Sheraton, respectively), so they probably also had
> larger horns. I think I remember seeing a model 80 at Tim Fabrizio's and
> it
> did have a larger horn. Still, the V has the best sound in an Edison
> table
> model. Frow says in his book that the V bedplates were painted in brown -
> he makes no mention of the maroon color being used.
>
> Everybody seems to "Ooo, Ooo this" and "Ooo, Ooo that" about Amberola
> 1As and get all googly-eyed and take out a second mortgage over Operas,
> but
> the fact is that the best sounding Edison was NEITHER of these models.
> The
> Amberola 1B is hardly ever mentioned by collectors and they don't command
> near the price of a 1A, but they are actually harder to find in my
> experience. And they sound WAY better because the Opera motor in them is
> much quieter and much smoother with much less flutter than the spur gear
> motor in the 1A. The horn is superior to anything else Edison ever sold
> to
> the public, INCLUDING the open wooden horns of the Opera and earlier
> models.
> It's also better than ANY of the DD player horns, including the Edisonic.
> The metal horn in the Amberola III is about the same size as those
> peculiar
> leather or fabric or whatever they were in the model I, but it is not
> quite
> as smooth with a distinctly peaky midrange by comparison. With the same
> horn as in the 1A, the superior motor makes the 1B the quietest,
> smoothest,
> BEST sounding Edison acoustic phonograph ever made. I use mine almost
> exclusively now for playing BAs.
>
> Greg Bogantz
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Albert" <cenfin at comcast.net>
> To: "Antique Phonograph List" <phono-l at oldcrank.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 12:55 PM
> Subject: Re: [Phono-L] Amberola V Cabinet
>
>
> >I have a beautiful original Amberola 5 in Mahogany and it has the medium
> >brown finish. Of my entire collection the 5 is the phonograph of choice
> >to listen to Blue amberols. The motor is silent, and the fidelity is
> >awsome. Al Menashe
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "John Maeder" <appywander at hotmail.com>
> > To: "Antique Phonograph List" <phono-l at oldcrank.org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 8:46 AM
> > Subject: RE: [Phono-L] Amberola V Cabinet
> >
> >
> >
> > Were Amberola V's ever produced with a brown bed plate and gear covers?
> > I
> > have one that is a medium brown as opposed to maroon. I would swear the
> > finish and striping are original. It is in a mahogany case. John
> >
> >> Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:44:06 -0800
> >> From: antqflea at yahoo.com
> >> Subject: Re: [Phono-L] Amberola V Cabinet
> >> To: phono-l at oldcrank.org
> >>
> >> This story is what makes collecting so interesting, one collectors joy,
> >> is someone else's I'll pass to expensive. If we all liked the same
> >> thing it would get very crowded and probably expensive.
> >> Since my traveling partner and I were the ones that passed on the
> >> machine two years in a row we are, and have been interested in why
> >> this
> >> machine was so special that it commanded a premium price. My partner
> >> said that he owned two or three of the V's with the 50/75 mech, and had
> >> been looking for a nice one that had the fancy mech with the brown
> >> painted bed plate. Are the V's with the plain 50/75 mech really more
> >> desirable and do they command a premium price??
> >> Apparently we have erroneously thought for a few years that the Iowa
> >> sun , the chase and then the thrill of just finding something out there
> >> in the wild may have fogged Jerry's good senses. I guess we were
> >> wrong??
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> DeeDee Blais <deedeeblais at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Sorry, but I don't have a spare Amberola V cabinet but
> >> I have another story... On my way driving from Oregon
> >> to Union at few year ago, I stopped at an antique shop
> >> and found what appeared to be a typical Amberola V. I
> >> opened the lid and was surprised to find an Amberola
> >> 50 type mechanism cleanly and without modification
> >> installed in the case. I closed the lid and quickly
> >> came to an agreeable price with the dealer. When I
> >> arrived at Union, I was talking to another collector
> >> that made the drive. I told him of my find and he
> >> said that he'd seen that same machine for the last
> >> couple of trips. I smiled and thought to myself,
> >> thanks for passing on it. Can you tell me why I was
> >> so pleased? Jerry Blais
> >>
> >>
> >> ____________________________________________________________________________________
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