Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M
I can't begin to fathom why you would think than an electrical amp would be necessary back then...
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I am 56 years old and know next to nothing about hand-cranked phonographs, except what I have seen (in photographs) and read about them. By the time I was born, in July 1956, electric phonographs, with synchronous motors and four speeds, had become mainstream in the US and had probably made most hand-cranked phonographs obsolete.
I was asking about the feasibility of converting a hand-cranked phono to modern technology (electric phono motor, AC-operated amplifiers for stereo) because there may be collectors or people who may have an old console or portable crank phonograph with a broken main turntable drive spring, or other problems that forced them to retire the unit. This would permit the current owner (son, grandson, etc. of the original owner) to preserve the cabinet (many console wind-up phonos had finely-crafted real wood cabinets the likes of which we will never see again, unfortunately
), while at the same time updating the technology to today's standards. The modified unit would probably draw more than a few puzzled looks, however, when an AC power cord was seen coming out of the cabinet.
I learned something today from the poster who mentioned an acoustic method of producing stereo sound from a mechanical reproducer, as found in wind-up phonographs. I had no idea until now that stereo sound was possible from disc records made in the early 1900s. The few stereo crank phonos available at the time must have been very well-made, in beautifully-crafted real wood cabinets, and must have cost a small fortune (in that era's dollars).