Hi everyone,
It's been a while now since I joined the board, and I just realised i hadn't presented myself.
Let me first say how I've been glad to find, at last, people who share my passion.
Thanx for your welcome and caring... and sorry in advance if you find my text a wee bit too long.
Now a bit about myself :
I think I started being a phono freak at the age of 9 when I found my great gran dad's suitcase Odeon needle phono in a dusty cellar, together with a bunch of 78rps of "Guinguette" and fox trots from the french 30s (mainly Columbia & Pathé shellacs)
At 11, I took the machine apart, cleaned and greased it, repaired the soundbox.
The soundbox was an orthophonic-like one in pot metal that I had to file a bit and stabilise with super-glue as the pot metal had started to split .
One of my pleasures was then to sit in the garden or in my room ( to the dismay of my sisters and parents
) and listen for hours to my great gran dad's records and others I could find in the flea markets of perpignan (southern France).
I must say my familly never really understood what had happened to me then...and still don't... I've been feeling very lonely in the matter for years ;-)
3 years later, at 14, I found the remnants of a light wooden box with the inscription "Graphophone"and the 1897 date on it . The interior was bizarre to me then, with a funny shaped black piece emerging from a rust covered slate. From that black part emerged something I later could identify as a shiny madrel..
It took us 2 months with my grand father to find all the missing parts an restore the machine. It was a Columbia AT.
The machine now sits proudly in my mother's loundge.
At 16, I went to the states with my parents (they were high school and university English teachers and my father was also then working part time for a californian university taking care of the students who came to France to study French)
When visiting a couple of friends near San Fran, they had us listen to a bizarre machine. It was a squarish bulgy dark wooden cabinet sitting on the floor carpet, though it obviously was a table model.
My mum's friend took a very thick shiny record, obviously not a shellac, and placed it on the turntable. she then actionned a weird lever at the front of the turntable and lowered a nickel arm onto the record.. and man ! how that sound/voice was amazingly clear and powerfull!
When she told me it was a mecanical recording I couldn't believe her. I remember her telling me the diaphragm was made of paper and the groove vertical. She said it was an Edison diamond Disc Phonograph, .. can't remember the song though...maybe "Tut-ank-Amon"
This event had marked me. It stayed at the back of my mind for many years until round 2004, at 40, I had the opportunity to start enriching (tough modestly) my phonograp collection.
Since then , I ve been sticking to Edison machines.
I love the way they all are so much overbuilt. Also, I never found a mechanical machine equaling them in quality (Ok maybe Pathé Hill and dale sometimes sounds fab, but I prefer the Edison sound).
I now have a standard B with a witches' hat horn, a fireside with the small morning glory maroon horn, a Home model with a 11 panels cygnet horn, and, last but not least, a home made Edison C19 Diamond Disc machine (there are pics of it in its present state in the thread about my Dance reproducer)
... well here we are.
I know it might seem funny for you to have a Frenchman in love with Edison machines, as France is the country of "Pathé Frère"...and I admit I feel quite isolated here in Paris,
But that's the way it is.
I hope we can continue exchanging the way we have.
I appreciate your company.
Cheers everyone from Paris
François
Ps Hope my English is not too bad ;-)