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An open door allowed louder sound projection while closed doors muffled the sound and dampened the volume. Pooley Furniture Company of Philadelphia was contracted to make the cabinets for the Victrola phonograph.
Later Johnson expanded his cabinet manufacturing operations and Victor began building the Victrola cabinets themselves allow a reduction in manufacturing costs. With the additional production control, Johnson wisely added cabinet finish choices including oak, walnut, and custom paint. Regardless of the steep price, sales of the Victrola were very strong. Johnson launched a well funded marketing campaign with opera stars and famous musicians endorsing his Victrola product and Victor brand.
Soon, the Victor logo was the most recognizable company brand identity in the United States. By , Johnson had sold 15, Victrolas. He continued innovations while at the same time striving to drive down the price. The Electrola was introduced which used an electric motor instead of a hand crank.
In , Johnson finally broke through the prohibitive pricing model. Sales rose from 7, per year in to , per year by By , Victor was making over a half million Victrolas per year with the VV-XI floor model being the most popular and selling over , units from through Competitors entered the market with lower priced models but not as good a quality as the Victrola.
In addition, Radio was introduced which offered more variety, better sound, and did not require the purchase of records. In response, Victor added models with spaces in the cabinet for a radio to be mounted that could utilize the same Victrola horn speaker.
Regardless, in the bottom fell out of the phonograph business. Hundreds of thousands of units sat unsold in warehouses and huge half-price sales were held during the summer of The market was now fully saturated with Victrola phonograph products. Improvements were made to the sound boxes and horns.
Signal transmissions theory that was developed during World War II allowed for further improvements in the sound technology and by , the Victrola sound was rich and superior to most radios.
Radio amplifiers were used instead of sound boxes and paper cone speakers were used instead of the metal horn speaker. In , just before the Great Depression killed sales of most non-essential items, Johnson sold the Victor business to RCA and retired a millionaire. You must log in to post a comment. Skip to content. By the end of , victurally all Victor products used both the Victor name and famous "Nipper" logo as an official product identification.
Eldridge Johnson's earlie st phonograph business was operated as the "Consolidated Talking Machine Co. The "Victor" name for his products along with his name was adopted shortly thereafter. The famous "dog and phonograph" logo began appearing on most machines by the end of that year.
Johnson and his growing staff made numerous improvements to the phonograph in those early years, including a tapered tonearm and new soundbox designs both of which improved sound quality and the production of quiet, stable-running spring motors.
Records also became less noisy through improved manufacturing processes. The phonograph market began to grow dramatically, and due to a creative and well-funded advertising campaign, Victor's sales steadily increased. His business boomed. However, by , growing competition from other manufacturers and increasing consumer resistance to the design of these early machines began to restrict Victor's growth. At that time, all phonograph manufacturers used various types of external horns to "amplify" the playback sound.
While customers wanted more volume and clearer sound quality from their machines, the only way this could be achieved was to increase the size of the horn. While these big machines worked well, the stark and ever-expanding horns tended to overwhelm the average parlor and some people felt that it created an unsightly appearance.
To make matters worse, the big protruding horns were prone to collecting dust or being bumped and damaged picture at left and many potential buyers refused to put such a monstrosity in their homes.
Victor's profits were continually being threatened by patent infringements; competing businesses were producing variations of essentially the same product and were at each other's throats legally in an attempt to dominate the growing phonograph business. Victor eventually won most of the lawsuits thanks to some very expensive legal representation , but sustaining strong profits through the fierce competition and legal turmoils was certainly a challenge.
Victor needed a new and unique product to distance themselves from the competition and to improve the pubic acceptance of the home phonograph. This would require the elimination of the big awkward horn and yet still maintain good audio performance. Therefore, as early as , Victor began to experiment with a novel idea to make the phonograph more acceptable and convenient.
The horn was folded downward into a large floor-standing cabinet, so that the horn opening was now below the turntable. Two doors were used to cover the opening in front of the cabinet. This concept had an added advantage in that the doors acted as a crude but effective "volume control"; when they were open, the sound was loud, when they were closed, the volume was reduced.
In addition, a lid could now be closed over the turntable, reducing the surface noise from records. Extra space in the large cabinet could be used to store records and accessories.
This idea was quickly patented, and the copyrighted name "Victrola" was given to this new invention. Unlike previous tabletop phonographs, the Victrola was a large floor-standing machine. Victor did not have the production facilities to make a large floor cabinet at that time, so the Pooley Furniture Company of Philadelphia was contracted to produce a limited quantity of custom-designed cabinets for these machines. This novel invention was aggressively marketed as the new "Victor-Victrola", and advertising for this product appeared in all major magazines during the summer of Once the batch of special-order empty cabinets arrived at Victor's plant, they were assembled using the company's best gold-plated phonograph hardware and mechanics, and were quickly distributed across the country.
There was likely some skepticism from Victor's management team, as this was a very expensive offering. Obviously, the new Victor-Victrola was intended for very affluent customers. In spite of the cost, the new Victrolas sold very briskly, and the initial production run was soon gone.
Victor knew it had an immediate hit on its hands. Production for a second batch was immediately scheduled. And the strongly defended Victrola patents gave Victor a huge competitive edge over other phonograph makers; as a result, Victor soon dominated the entire talking machine industry. The original Victrola design has several deficiencies though; the most problematic one being the need for the user to awkwardly "reach way down" into the deep cabinet opening on top in order to change a record or lift the tonearm picture at right.
In less than a year, this was soon resolved through the use of a domed lid, which allowed the turntable and tone arm to sit nearly flush on top of the cabinet. Only several thousand of these early flat-lid "Pooley" Victrolas were produced, making them highly sought-after by collectors today. In , the new Victor-Victrola was being marketed as "Victrola the Sixteenth" , a model name which remained in-use for the company's 'flagship' model until Victor rapidly expanded its manufacturing operations to make the VV-XVI cabinets in-house, and the services of Pooley were phased-out.
Victor also catered to customers by adding an increasing array of finish choices, including oak, walnut, and even custom hand-painted versions. Only a few hundred of these models were produced before being quietly discontinued.
It is important to note that Victor continued to manufacture external-horn machines up into the early 's, although in rapidly diminishing numbers. Total production of external horn models in was more than 65, units; by it had dropped to 19, and it fell to just over 9, units in It states "Brunswick" in large gold script with "The Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company" beneath in smaller black print.
Brunswick cautiously tested the phonograph market in the 'teens'--and then jumped in. Casting about for a growth project, Brunswick executives had scrutinized newspaper ads for items selling well. Phonographs and 78s were selling because of a dance craze. Cabinets were the most difficult part of a phonograph to manufacture, and here the huge company saw an opportunity. Phonograph makers were asked if they would be interested in bids on cabinets, and orders for phonograph cases soon had Brunswick factories humming.
The Edison Phonograph Company was Brunswick's main client. But making cabinets for others did not satisfy Brunswick executives. Why make excellent cases and see them sold under different trade names?
It was an affront to company tradition. The models were ready by April 3, Brunswick executives decided to plunge into this market. Victrola and 78 Journal, Issue The company began by making two styles of cabinet phonographs, later producing a range of upright and console models as well as a line of period models and custom-built cabinets for the higher priced markets.
It never made external horn models, which were no longer fashionable. Brunswick's expensive models featured large ornate cabinets with hand crafted designs and carvings, a testament to the factories' wood workers. In the late 'teens', the company issued some vertical-cut shellac records -- but only in Canada. Early Brunswick discs were not sold in the U. By special arrangement, Brunswick phonograph dealers would sell only Pathe records and advertise Pathe records in local newspapers.
Brunswick benefited since its phonographs played Pathe discs, and Pathe purchased Brunswick cabinets. This lasted until late Brunswick could put many machines on the market in a short time and, in , many 78s. Unlike most new companies making these products, Brunswick had its own large cabinet manufacturing facilities and a national retail network. A distinctive Brunswick innovation was its Ultona reproducer, patented by Louis Taxon on September 18, It is designed to play the three main types of discs sold in that period: normal lateral shellac Victor and Columbia 78s , vertical cut shellac Pathe , and vertical cut Diamond Discs Edison.
The reproducer has four movable parts which can be adjusted to play any record. Steel needles can be inserted, played, and then removed. Twist the reproducer and its permanent diamond point with independent stylus-diaphragm plays Edison discs.
A ball-shaped sapphire stylus mounted in a metal shank plays Pathes and other vertical cut discs. A sliding weight allows for proper pressure on a record. The elaborate design of the tone arm causes air leaks but these can be sealed with grease.
Regrettably, some Ultona tone arms are made of pot metal, which can swell and weaken over time, easily breaking and shattering. Opinions vary regarding Brunswick machines with the Ultona. Most listeners consider the sound to be merely adequate. Models with fully restored reproducers and lubricated connections can sound great, but few collectors want to risk replacing diaphragm gaskets on the large and complicated reproducers.
When Edison discs are played, record grooves must move the stylus and heavy reproducer across the disc since no gearing mechanism from the motor advances the tone arm as is the case in Edison models.
Some collectors hesitate to play Edison records with the Ultona reproducer for fear of damaging records. Check the condition of the Edison jewel stylus often and carefully.
Edison executives probably had Brunswick's Ultona in mind when adding this warning to Edison record envelopes: "This Re-Creation should not be played on any instrument except the Edison Diamond Disc Phonograph and with the Edison Diamond Disc Reproducer, and we decline responsibility for any damage that may occur to it if this warning is ignored.
All Brunswick spring motors are of amazingly good quality--well-designed and quiet running. All have two or three-spring motors.
Grease originally used to lubricate springs must have been high quality because the springs today rarely require new grease. Brunswicks have internal horns made of holly or spruce wood.
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