Hi Robert, I have found that Edison DD's play well with a modern stereo using the 78 speed, they do not sound the same as on a DD phono, but play remarkably well and are not damaged. I had the larger console with these buttons. The wooden holder for the reproducer was for shipping. Replacement reproducers came in a cardboard box with the wooden holder inside.
If you decide to play the long play, let me know how it turned out. While I was still living with my parents I purchased about 100 DD's and I played them on their stereo until my mother threatened me, she said it all sounded the same, like Little Rascals' music. I have only seen one 24 minute upgrade kit on eBay, Edison recommended adding a second spring with the kit and recommended cleaning and re greasing the old spring as both springs were required at full strength. Steve From [email protected] Sun Dec 5 14:36:14 2004 From: [email protected] ([email protected]) Date: Sun Dec 24 13:09:55 2006 Subject: [Phono-L] Edison phono question Message-ID: <[email protected]> In a message dated 12/5/2004 1:07:48 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, [email protected] writes: 24 minutes of uninterrupted Edison sound (with occasional winding, of course); ah, heaven! IF...memory serves me, an extra spring barrel was part of the Edison Long-Play upgrade kit, so a properly equipped machine would play an Long-Play record through without rewinding. I THINK the grooves on Edison LP records are 450 per inch, or one-third of the normal DD groove width. That was a problem which would not be solved until electrical playback, using lightweight cartridges, became possible twenty years later. I believe the gentleman who said that the long-play records consisted of excerpts from standard-length DD's is correct. I don't think the Edison company ever recorded longer works that could exploit the possibilities of the Long-Play format. The Edison Long-Play format merely highlighted the shortcomings of all records, when they were compared to radio. Their lack of volume, (The Long-Play records could not equal even the standard DD's in SPL's), fragility, and expense doomed the effort. When these limitations were added to the incompatibility of DD's with other record formats, the whole Long-Play venture was reduced to an exercise in futility. I have been fascinated by and an ardent admirer of Thomas Edison since I first heard about him when I was a little boy, but I have never been able to understand, or even rationalize Edison's stubborn refusal to adopt electrical recording. This man invented the light bulb! He discovered that a heated filament will, in a vacuum, radiate electrons that can be captured by a second filament! The phenomenon that allowed vacuum tubes and radio to be developed is called, "The Edison Effect." He should have invented electrical recording, not fought it. Oh, what might have been... Randy Minor
