[78-L] British acoustical phonographs (was: Dumb Gennetts)

[Michael Biel]

From: Dan Van Landingham <danvanlandingham at yahoo.com>
> As late as the fifties you could still order portable acoustic phonographs
> and as I recall,I saw some very inexpensive acoustics in the early sixties.
> Wards and Sears had quite a number of them you could chose from.

True, but what was mentioned by Matthew and David concerning the British
acoustical phonographs of the 40s and 50s were HUGE and very expensive
machines such as the EMG Expert with a horn over five feet high with a
bell about 12 x 18 inches, not dinky little crappy suitcase portables or
kiddie machines like we see in the Sears and Wards catalogs.  It's
comparing a kiddie tricycle with a Rolls Royce, or maybe a Bentley.  

Matthew Duncan wrote:
>>> I think that record buyers in Britian had acoustical players until the 40s
>>> on mass due to cost of more advanced equipment rather than a preference

As David mentioned, it was not the cost, it definitely was a preference.
 Some of these acoustical machines cost much more than electrical
machines.

>>> coupled with the fact that so many homes didn't have electricity until
>>> the WWII period at all or perhaps in only one part of any building.
>>> I wouldn't know about the equivalent matters in the US surrounding this though.
>>> Matthew Duncan  UK

Through the foresight of President Roosevelt, the U.S. underwent a vast
program of Rural Electrification during the depression years of the
1930s, and by the end of the decade almost all areas of the U.S. were
electrified.  I live in the edge of a rural mountainous region of
Kentucky, and there is nowhere in the state where electricity was not
available.  They did sell "farm radios" which were battery operated,
some of them fairly fancy console models, but by the time of our
outbreak of the war these had just about all been replaced by
mains-powered sets.  They didn't all replace their acoustical
phonographs, however, to anywhere near the level of their radio
purchases.  I was just reading the percentages of record buyers in 1939
with acoustical machines and it was about 30% I believe, with maybe an
overall 50% saturation of players of any type.  (I would have taken
notes on this if I knew we would be discussing it!)    

David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>> If you read some of the old issues of Gramophone (and they're online),
>> you'll find a preference among some reviewers for the more "pure"
>> sound of acoustical machines as opposed to the tubbiness or distortion
>> from radiograms.

There never was any real move in the U.S. among classical record buyers
to continue to use or buy acoustical phonographs of any type. If you
look at the U.S. journals like American Record Guide, and books like
David Hall's and Irving Kolodin's, you will not see any reference to
playing anything acoustically for any reason.  I am not sure if there
was any formal importation of those machines into the U.S.

>> Reviews of classical album sets even advise whether
>> to play with steel or thorn needles,down to individual sides in some cases. dl

It is a hoot to look at the articles in the War Years about the shortage
of new records and the non-existence of any imports from the U.S., but
yet there are classified ads in the same issues demanding ONLY records
which have never been touched by a steel needle, and store ads saying
their records have been "fibred", meaning pre-played with a nice, juicy,
fresh cactus needle.  Those records are now caked with gook and full of
crackle.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com