With all due respect, I invite anyone to hold an acoustic guitar in front of the horn of a playing phonograph and see if they don't hear the difference between listening with the guitar's strings muted and listening without muting them (try it with the last few seconds of a loud march for maximum effect). It's the acoustic counterpart to electrical spring reverbs mounted inside electric guitar amplifiers for the last 50 years, as well as analog plate reverbs prevalent in professional recording studios from the late '50's through the '80's.
Other tests of the principle would be to strike a piano key while holding the damper pedal down and hearing the rich reverb of all the other strings resonating sympathetically to the vibrations of not only the key struck, but of the mechanism striking it. Then let the damper pedal up and strike the same key to hear how dry and close up it sounds in comparison. Or tap an acoustic guitar on the back while muting the strings to hear a deadish thump, then tap it again with the strings free to vibrate and hear the difference. Or play a record on the Klingsor and alternately mute and unmute the strings as it plays, taking into account that dirt and rust on the strings is reducing their ability to vibrate by a good 75% -- imagine it with fresh, clean strings! I'm not disputing that the strings may have been intended only as a marketing gimmick with no regard to the effect on the sound, as Ray suggests, but I can absolutely guarantee that fresh strings, tuned properly, made a significant difference to the sound nonetheless. Incidentally, Art, the strings could possibly be replaced by pulling the strings needed from a few sets of autoharp strings, which should be readily available with a little research. Best, Robert ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: "Antique Phonograph List" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 5:43 PM Subject: Re: [Phono-L] Klingsor > All this is very interesting, and the Klingsor is unusual, but I personally > feel that any attempt to tune the strings would be a waste of time. I > believe that the addition of strings was just a marketing gimmick and never > did add anything significant to the sound of the machine. Nevertheless, > Art, it is certainly an uncommon phono for your collection and fun to > discuss. > Ray > > > > _______________________________________________ > Phono-L mailing list > [email protected] > > Phono-L Archive > http://www.oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/ >
