Those portable Orthophonic Victrolas are pretty bad offenders in the tracking-error department. Brunswick made a couple of "Panatrope" portables with much, much less tracking error, and the floor model Orthophonics are fairly decent in that way. ----- Original Message ----- From: Robert Wright To: Antique Phonograph List Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 5:43 AM Subject: [Phono-L] Shellac records and damage - pictures links I photoshopped some pictures to show examples of what I'm talking about... I am obliged to point out that these pictures, and obviously resultant conclusions, are about as far from scientific as you can get. http://a377.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/84/l_6b9d990784f3c108151a103baf96aec0.jpg - showing needle's alignment parallel to inside wall of reproducer http://a538.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/98/l_ba7324bcbedc29df112cf34667592c39.jpg - showing soundbox's angle of perpendicularity at start of record http://a292.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/128/l_ceb25fe6eee479a84fc516ed6b77528b.jpg - showing angle at end of record I also did a test where I secured a piece of paper to the turntable and traced the needle's path across it, also marking the (visual) angle of the soundbox at points near the average start, middle, and end of a 10" disc, then drew lines between the tip of the needle and (roughly) the pivot point to see how far off from perpendicular the soundbox was on average, and specifically at the three points by measuring the distance between the lines at one inch outside the arc of the needle's travel. The soundbox was something like 10 degrees off perpendicular, but the difference in the degrees of error between the three points was, I have to say, much less than I thought it would be. There are so many measurements to take into account that I simply don't have the equipment to measure (nor the ideal phonograph, what with this big honkin' lid in the way), that I'm hoping someone with more experience measuring these types of things will speak up, or better yet, link me to some technical drawings that might better illuminate this issue.
