Bought a Victrola

[Dennman6]

I bought an Victrola Orthophonic 4-3 about a year ago for $40 on CL. The cabinet needs refinished because the last owner stripped it, but it sounds REALLY good for an all acoustic machine. I can only imagine what a Credenza model would sound like.

I don't have to imagine what a Credenza sounds like as I bought one from a longtime broadcaster friend 2 years ago. It's a 1926 model It's ALMOST the best wind-up machine the Victor company ever made-the 10-50 has a larger speaker horn than the Credenza, so slightly better bass response. I had the reproducer rebuilt on mine by Walt Sommers in Pennsylvania, & with the right "electrically recorded" 78s of the 1925-1930 period it sounds luscious & gorgeous. Beautiful tone, very sweet-even on the earlier acoustic 78s. I use a soft tone needle on most later records, a medium tone on acoustics. Loud tone needles produce uncomfortable volume in my music room, which is a loft family room above & open to the living room. I also have a pair of VV-Xs(the original poster's model type) from 1921-those sound REALLY loud with anything but soft tone needles(and in a harsh way). I also have a small Columbia Viva-Tonal model from 1927. As good as the Credenza is, my 1959 Motorola "Hi Fi" portable with 6X9 center channel woofer & swing out speakers make the 78s sound better(Sonotone 8T cartridge). But for an enjoyable vintage listening experience, it's hard to beat an Orthophonic Credenza. They're far more obtainable that the big 10-50 I mentioned, which is a 1927 model with record changer & as wide as two washing machines put side by sie(much heavier though.

 

[gadget73]

Funny story:
When we lived in California, we moved into an apartment building shaped roughly like a rectangle, with a courtyard in the inside of the rectangle, and the apartment was built into a hill. We were on the second floor, at the bottom of the rectangle. Everyone had living room windows facing inward and it being California, the windows were open most of the time. Our landlady lived at the top of the rectangle on the second floor. I would play the Cheney and she would come down and tell me to turn it down! I explained that it didn't have an amplifier or even a volume knob. (She was old enough to have seen a Victorola.) I ended up stuffing a pillow into the horn. The thing is amazingly loud for something that doesn't plug into the wall.

This is actually the origin of the phrase "put a sock in it". Thats how a lot of people cut the volume on sets that didn't have damping doors or anything like that.