Ancient Loudspeakers

[Soandso]

Dinsdale, J. "Horn Loudspeaker Design". Wireless World. March 1974.

Thanks for the reference.

Yes, this is my source. I deliberately withheld citing it for you specifically because felt you were being rude and ….

 

[Curvature]

This is a blog and not a peer reviewed scientific publication whose entries are first submitted to editors. You can "ask" whatever comes into your mind and nobody has to obey.

I'm on a tablet and it's inconvenient to try following what you are contesting. It seems you are nit-picking my 1974 source's information.

For any readers here again is my synoptic post from 2 days ago for easier comparison to earlier today's screen shots of my own source's 2 written paragraphs along with my source's own numbered referenced sources.

QUOTE (my text) =

View attachment 463674

Take a moment to read your notes and compare them to the bibliography in the 1974 WW article. You'll find many transcription errors. Can you see why I thought an AI generated a summary?

Klipsch is not even from the same era of speakers designers as Voigt and Flanders. His first horn-related patent dates 1943. https://patents.google.com/patent/US2310243A/en

In 1929 HC Harrison was granted a patent for a split bass and midrange horn attached to a phonograph.

 

[mhardy6647]

Wrong is wrong.
If nothing else, as @Curvature strongly implies, here's an excellent chance to set these records straight, as he has done, piecemeal.
and -- this very thread is very cite-able.

It is worse than rude to reproduce someone else's published scholarship (be it accurate or flawed; i.e., the 1974 Wireless World article) sans appropriate citation. It's effectively plagairism.

 

[Soandso]

…i worse than rude to reproduce someone else's published scholarship (be it accurate or flawed; i.e., the 1974 Wireless World article) sans appropriate citation. It's plagarism.

I listed several historical names and dates. Where I knew those were originally published I did cite a specific historical reference.

My inclusion of individuals and events without any specific dates from a time-line that predates most of us is, in my opinion, also historical. Since my source did not provide any citations for those details I treated it as common historical knowledge. If anyone had asked for my basis I would have provided that.

 

[Moderate Dionysianism]

This is a blog and not a peer reviewed scientific publication whose entries are first submitted to editors. You can "ask" whatever comes into your mind and nobody has to obey.

Luckily this isn't X or some other internet sewer either. There are Moderators here, and hopefully they will "ask" you more convincingly to follow basic rules of transparency and accuracy.

 

[Curvature]

I'm no mod but please let's just move on.

@Soandso if you have other sources of interest I will welcome them and read them... with a magnifying glass

 

[Soandso]

Take a moment to read your notes and compare them to the bibliography in the 1974 WW article. You'll find many transcription errors. Can you see why I thought an AI generated a summary?

Klipsch is not even from the same era of speakers designers as Voigt and Flanders. His first horn-related patent dates 1943. https://patents.google.com/patent/US2310243A/en

In 1929 HC Harrison was granted a patent for a split bass and midrange horn attached to a phonograph.

View attachment 463680

It astonishes me when an Original Poster moves to make their own thread serially argumentative with a participant. This after you contacted me privately asking if I had a copy of one specific citation, to which I replied "Sorry, no."

So: for 1920 my reproduced citation is correct; for 1924 my reproduced citation had 8 words and I typed or was auto-corrected as "Foundation" instead of "Function"; and for 1927 my reproduced citation is also correct.

 

[Soandso]

… if you have other sources of interest I will welcome them …

1922 (or so) the famous (don't take just my word for it) jazz band known as The Original Memphis Five were photographed as they might play, or possibly (I wasn't there) had been playing, for a recording deploying a vintage circular type of implement.

My (unverifiable) surmise is the apparatus made acoustic sound loud and thus functioning like some type of "horn". Your expertise may extend to analysis of this configuration on frequency response in comparison to tapered "horns".

I thought this specific apparatus might not be previously familiar to you and thus of some interest. (NOTE: The musicians' names are known to me, but I have omitted identifying them individually.)

[CITATION = The photo is not AI. It seems to be from a De Haven photographic plate out of Chicago and at some unclear time later printed as part of the historical Duncan Schiedt Collection.]

 

[Curvature]

1922 (or so) the famous (don't take just my word for it) jazz band known as The Original Memphis Five were photographed as they might play, or possibly (I wasn't there) had been playing, for a recording deploying a vintage circular type of implement.

My (unverifiable) surmise is the apparatus made acoustic sound loud and thus functioning like some type of "horn". Your expertise may extend to analysis of this configuration on frequency response in comparison to tapered "horns".

I thought this specific apparatus might not be previously familiar to you and thus of some interest. (NOTE: The musicians' names are known to me, but I have omitted identifying them individually.)

[CITATION = The photo is not AI. It seems to be from a De Haven photographic plate out of Chicago and at some unclear time later printed as part of the historical Duncan Schiedt Collection.]

View attachment 463744

That cylinder is one of two things I can think of.

Back then, most recordings were made through mechanical means onto wax cylinders or discs. So this cylinder could be for acoustically loading a brass horn connected to a cutting machine. This seems a little unlikely because those horns were usually pretty large, long and obvious. Straight conical horns were the norm, as far as I know. Hard to hide those in a picture.

The other possibility is that the cylinder is an open-ended enclosure, again meant for acoustically loading (and perhaps even directivity), of a spring-isolated carbon microphone. Microphones back then had very weak electrical output and there was no means of electrical amplification.

These are just guesses.

 

[Curvature]

That cylinder is one of two things I can think of.

Back then, most recordings were made through mechanical means onto wax cylinders or discs. So this cylinder could be for acoustically loading a brass horn connected to a cutting machine. This seems a little unlikely because those horns were usually pretty large, long and obvious. Straight conical horns were the norm, as far as I know. Hard to hide those in a picture.

The other possibility is that the cylinder is an open-ended enclosure, again meant for acoustically loading (and perhaps even directivity), of a spring-isolated carbon microphone. Microphones back then had very weak electrical output and there was no means of electrical amplification.

These are just guesses.

Below is frequency response data extracted from a 1929 text. They compare the typical curves of mechanical vs. electrical recorders. The reference curve is a DPA 4006A metal diaphragm omnidirectional microphone, whose response goes from below 10Hz out to 40kHz and beyond. Microphones have wildly different polar patterns, so we only see a very small part of the performance with these on-axis curves.

Source

1929. Wilson, P and Webb, GW. Modern Gramophones and Electrical Reproducers. Cassell and Company. London.

For those interested in microphones there are two important texts:

• Impossibly rare and self-published. 1999. Paquette, Bob. The History & Evolution of the Microphone. I've been looking for a copy, and I would buy it from anyone who's willing to sell or has a source.
• Highly technical. 2012. Rayburn, Ray. Eargle's Microphone Book. 3rd Ed. Focal. Oxford.

 

[Curvature]

A few years later, the Schlenker speaker was introduced 1928. This is an unusual 757mm (29.8") direct radiating speaker. The motor is deliberately mounted off-center to reduce breakup. The diaphragm is a stretched metal alloy called duralumin. I'm really impressed.

Also from the same 1929 text, we have this set of pictures of the Schlenker loudspeaker in an HMV unit.

Source

1929. Wilson, P and Webb, GW. Modern Gramophones and Electrical Reproducers. Cassell and Company. London.

 

[Curvature]

In 1929 HC Harrison was granted a patent for a split bass and midrange horn attached to a phonograph.

Also attached to the same patent, frequency response curves of a typical phonograph vs. Harrison's.

Interestingly, Kolbrek and Dunker measured Harrison's phonograph, providing this curve.

Source

• 1929. US Patent 1730425A. https://patents.google.com/patent/US1730425A/en
• 2019. Kolbrek, Bjorn and Dunker, Thomas. High Quality Horn Loudspeaker Systems: History, Theory and Design. Kolbrek Elektroakustikk.

 

[Soandso]

… cylinder could be for acoustically loading a brass horn connected to a cutting machine. This seems a little unlikely because those horns were usually pretty large, long and obvious. Straight conical horns were the norm, as far as I know.

…possibility is that the cylinder is an open-ended enclosure, again meant for acoustically loading (and perhaps even directivity)…

In 1903 the publication Talking Machine News gave some parameters of acoustic horns for playing into. They stopped publishing in 1907.

July's 1903 edition "Record Making I" recommended 26 inches long tin horns tapering at the bell to 6 in. wide.

August's 1903 edition "Record Making II. Talking Instrumental Records" wrote about there being different instruments' placed in position relative to any of these acoustic horns and also how the recording chain's diaphragm (which horn sound waves vibrated) should have different thicknesses among certain instruments.

October's 1903 edition "Record Making IV" described how singers should be only 3-4 inches away from a tapering horn of only 24 inches in length.

The old publication Taking Instrumental Records described a 12 inch wide bell of a 26 inch long tapering horn was ideal for instruments made of brass and likewise for banjos.

S.D.O. Romero's thesis points out the above indicating that by around 1910 there were 40 inch long horns deployed for orchestras and likewise brass instruments. While for violins the horn was only 6 inches wide at it's bell but 34 inches long. And furthermore how pianos used horns that were not straight, but rather angled up sometimes into almost an "L-position".

As per Romero's thesis (2019) "Recording Studios on Tour. The Expedition of the Victor Talking Machine Company Through Latin America, 1913-1926."

A final mention regarding your surmise that previously pictured cylinder had a "directivity" function. Romero likewise alludes to the use of an "acoustic cavity" and "metal tube" to direct sound.

 

[Soandso]

…pictures of the Schlenker loudspeaker ….

You might also like these pictures of several other early loudspeaker designs. All from the General Electric's Research team C.W. Rice and E.W. Kellogg's presentation to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers at a 1925 conference subsequently adapted in print as "Notes On the Development of Hornless Loudspeakers"; and last reprinted by the Journal of Audio Engineering Society, Volume. 30. No. 7/8, 1982 July/August. [Ask for likely full free link if can't search it out.]

 

[Curvature]

Th

You might also like these pictures of several other early loudspeaker designs. All from the General Electric's Research team C.W. Rice and E.W. Kellogg's presentation to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers at a 1925 conference subsequently adapted in print as "Notes On the Development of Hornless Loudspeakers"; and last reprinted by the Journal of Audio Engineering Society, Volume. 30. No. 7/8, 1982 July/August.

Thanks. I used this one for the FR measurements I presented earlier in the thread.