Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 1, No. 6 (1927-03)

262 The Phonograph Monthly Review would not promptly ban tlie records on the ground that the music is contra mores. As to the dealers—I find they still emulate the proprietor of the country store from whom the vacationist tried to pur- chase a toothbrush. “Can’t do it,” said the bucolic Wanamaker. “We sold the one we had!” Recently I asked the sales girl in one of the stores to let me have a certain tone poem by R. Strauss. She didn’t think they had it, but she would look. As she did not, however, I finally repeated my request. “Why we sold that Faust Album,” she replied. In despair I turned to the young man. “Strauss, Richard Strauss,” I emphasized. “I told him, interpolated the young lady petulantly, “that a man bought the Faust Album.” The young man grinned. “Faust sounds like Strauss”, he explained. “Oh! no it doesn’t”, I averred, “Strauss writes in a modern idiom.” With that I left and tried at another store. There I in- terrupted a sweet young thing who was drinking in, the synthetic moonlight on a jazzed-up Ganges. I explained to her what I wanted, spelling out S. T. R. A. U. S. S. and adding that I didn’t care what happened to any Faust Album they might have had. “Yes, we have it”, she said, “we sell a lot of them. You mean the Blue Danube Waltz?” Cordially yours, Roxbury, Mass. A. A. Biewend. February 15, 1927. By H. T. Barnet, M. I. E. E: London, February 1st, 1927. O F all the points that differentiate a good gramophone from a bad one, unquestion- ably the most important is that of the cor- rectitude of the needle track alignment . This phrase is not quite a perfect one but I coined it four years ago when I began to hammer the gramophone trade vigorously about their horrid machines of that day and both the phrase and my views have since been taken up by other writers than myself with the result that in this country (with the exception of some inferior makes imported from the continent) you can now hardly find a new machine that is not at least passably correct in this particular. Twelve years ago, when machines were first generally made, the point was understood, but the introduction and general adoption of the goose-neck patterned tone arm led to its becoming lost sight of. At the same time that I was contending for correct needle track alignment I also pointed out the faults of the goose-neck with the dead-end so that, the fashion in the latter respect changing, it became easier for the makers when redesigning their tone-arms to make them so that the track alignment should come right. A correct machine has its needle dipping (in its slope) straight down into that part of the groove where it touches, and is not dipping down into the groove askew so that its point shall be forced into the wall at the bottom of the groove on one side and its side forcibly jammed onto the top of the groove on the other side. In other words, a vertical plane through the axis of the needle should be at a tangeni: to the groove pro- ceeding from the point where the needle touches. In still other words, the needle and stylus bar as seen from the front should be square (at right angles to) a line straight across the record and passing through the middle of the spindle. With incorrect machines destruction of records is exceedingly rapid; the kind of machine gener- ally in use four years ago would ruin a record in a single running with a steel needle. It will be readily understood that with so much mechan- ical obstruction to the progress of the needle sur- face noise was terrible, and the vibration and even jumping of the needle caused anything but a true interpretation of a record even on its first time of playing. If you are looking at your machine to see if it is right, it is not sufficient to put the needle on to one part only of the track, try it every quar- ter of an inch of its swinging path and then if it is dead true in the middle of the record and not noticeably out of square either at the inside of a ten-inch record or on the outer edge of a twelve- inch record, there is not much wrong. If you cannot imagine a radius line to judge by, get a large envelope and place it on the record with its left hand front corner to the middle of the spindle and its front edge resting against the point of the needle. Short tone arms, no matter how well designed, must be noticeably out of true for the needle at the beginning and end of the record, but if they are right in the middle then it may be assumed the designer has done his work well. When there is nine inches or more between the center of the tone arm base and the spindle center, the align- ment may be so good that fine steel needles can safely be used at 50° needle angle instead of the usual 60° and then one may be assured that in- stead of wearing in use, your records will become more burnished, more silent as to surface, and truer in tone as time goes on. Very small machines with short tone arms are not worth improving, but some bad goose-neck machines with long tone arms can be brought nearly right by interposing a couple of metal adaptors between the sound box and its socket so as to bring the sound box of inches farther towards the right. Fibre needles only should be used and always at 60° stylus bar angle if the machine is a bad one. The point portion of a fibre needle used in this way is practically vertical and can do but little damage. Needle Angle . Old practice was always to set the sound box so that the stylus bar and conse- quently the needle should make an angle of 60° with the horizontal. This angle corresponds with the angle made by the hour hand of a clock when it is at seven o'clock. This sharp angle causes a steel needle to dig or cut into the bottom of the record groove so that the records are destroyed and so that the needle is jarred and even jumped about unless the weight on it is excessive, in any case rendering a perfect interpretation of the music very difficult to attain. With machines hav-