Jukebox memories and sound quality

[Quadman2]

Man the past memories flowed with the reading of others' experiences with these little box wonders that brought the world of music and the "Top Ten" of the charts into our lives.

Admittedly, they didn't offer the best of sound. How could they? With speakers of that size, and the industrial material put into them for heavy daily use, it didn't matter to the generation of that age who collected around these little devices as they belted out the simple tunes of love lost and love gained. Most of the time chatter ruled the roost anyways. When they were played, with the kids turning up the volume and the proprietor turning it down...it was an endless contest with the owner sometimes pulling the plug. If that happened, the crowd would move on.

These little musical gems helped foster the tunes of the day, and added to the prosperity of the restaurants, bus depots, pool halls and clubs, and were just part of the rebel generation who flaunted their garb, hair styles, and language of the day.

If you weren't there...you were square!


Q

 

[marcmorin]

Connie Francis........."lipstick on your collar" is probably the first i can remember coming from a jukebox. The one i fell in love with coming out of the AmVets hall mom and dad belonged to was Patsy Cline....."Crazy"

Audiophile? ...........hell no. Memories?........... hell yes!!!!!!!!!

which is more important?

 

[HTHMAN]

Back when I was in high school in the 60's, they were in every teen hangout and bar. The sound was not great, but we did not really care. I liked the ones that picked up your 45 moved it into place and played it. In addition, most restaurants had a box in each booth for you to select your favorites while you ate. It is not the sound, it is the nostalgia.

 

[Frank Sol]

"Don't Rock the Jukebox."

 

[tnsilver]

I liked the ones that picked up your 45 moved it into place and played it.

When I was a kid it mesmerized me. I'd wait for anyone to drop their change into it, and as soon as they're gone I'd run to the glass and stick my face into it to watch it do it's magic. Some of the headshells on those jukeboxes were almost as wide as half as a 45 record. They were huge!!! My dad's GE console turntable had the tiniest headshell in comparison. Oh boy, was I disappointed every time we came home...

 

[Doghouse]

A bit more information

Here's an artist's impression of the Rock-Ola million and a half square feet factory in Chicago.




A still from a forties film showing a Wurlitzer 501. They were really big.




Seeburg "Trashcans," the 1946 Model 146 undergoing final inspection.




Take a tour of the Wurlitzer factory in 1950.

The cabinets were solid wood, they actually bothered to match the grains of the veneers they used.

 

[dwaller131]

In the early 1990s I worked for a place that restored antique 'amusement machines'. Which means we did jukeboxes, puck bowlers (really fun), and pinballs. It was a great job, learned a ton about all of it.

The guy who ran the place had a soft spot for Seeburg jukeboxes, so that is mostly what we dealt with. He felt they had the most reliable mech (the thing that picked and played the records), and the styling was usually as good if not better than the competitors.

The boxes were mostly designed to play loudly. The early boxes usually used a large single driver (15" for the most part) , the later stereo boxes would have multiple drivers mounted to the speaker board (many Seeburgs had dual 12" alnicos with dual 4" doing mids and highs). I don't know anything about tube amps, but that's all that these jukeboxes had, and I do remember we had a lot of 6L6 tubes and 6893(?) tubes on hand. With efficient drivers, they did play pretty loud. The cabinets weren't even close to being sealed, with venting at both the top and the back (for airflow for the tube amps), and there were gaps for coin doors, reject buttons, selector buttons, and all sorts of stuff.

I think the weak link were the phono cartridges and the media being used. Not sure what stylii were used, but they were basic (but durable). And of course, most 45s don't have the best sound quality. At the time I was working with them, 45s were still being pressed (I have 2 Nirvana 45s, and a few from Guns N Roses, Green Day, and Warrant) and those 45s sounded pretty good on a box from the late 1950s.

 

[dwaller131]

Seeburg "Trashcans," the 1946 Model 146 undergoing final inspection.

View attachment 1631214

We restored one of the "Trash Cans" for Bill Cartwright, the basketball player (at the time he was the center on the Bulls), and it sounded every bit like you would expect a 15" driver playing inside a metal can to sound. But they were fun, because the metal cabinet lent itself to customization, and we did paint a few of them to match interiors for customers.

 

[NH-MAN]

A bit more information

Here's an artist's impression of the Rock-Ola million and a half square feet factory in Chicago.

View attachment 1631201


A still from a forties film showing a Wurlitzer 501. They were really big.


View attachment 1631211

Seeburg "Trashcans," the 1946 Model 146 undergoing final inspection.

View attachment 1631214


Take a tour of the Wurlitzer factory in 1950.

The cabinets were solid wood, they actually bothered to match the grains of the veneers they used.

Awesome video thanks.

I have been in hundreds of production plants and what always impressed and fascinated me was not what they were making but the production equipment.

The people who manufacture the production equipment are freaking geniuses.

Crazy elaborate equipment that makes you wonder how they even came up with it.

 

[Doghouse]

The record I remember most from the late fifties was heard from a jukebox in a basenent coffee bar round the back of Oxford Circus, called "The Martinique" It was all iimmitation palm trees and bamboo decore. I and some teenage friends both boys and girls who worked locally in an office used to go in there sometimes straight from work before we went home. You sometimes found yourself unconsciously walking down the steps in time to this.

I remember that it got taken over and was completely re-fitted so ended up looking like a soulless Wimpy bar. Mirrors all round the room. We stopped going there shortly after it changed hands. It was then owned by a little bald fat guy. One night there were very few in at six O'Clock. He had his very attractive daughter working there, possibly after school. She'd been clearing a table and was about to come over and chat to us when we heard him call out,

"Loretta! You've brought back two coffee cups and only one spoon!"

I'll always remember that.

On the subject of coffee bars.
My job on leaving school in 1957 was in an office at the top end of Regent Street, so Soho and the coffee bars were just around the corner. Teenage girls outnumbered we boys by five to one in this office. Sometimes a group of us would go to a coffee bar during our lunch hour. Straw bags were popular with girls in those days. Like a big flat round circle of straw with two looped handles either side. We'd get an innocent looking one to put their bag on the floor behind the table and we'd drop an empty coffee cup and saucer into it. I say dropped, I realy meant lowered, as if you dropped one on a hard floor they shattered with a bang into a thousand pieces.
They were clear glass and made by Arcoroc in France. Like these. Very trendy in the late fifties. When we were ready to leave, as soon as the girl picked the bag up the cup and saucer was swallowed amongst the contents,



Over a few weeks we had enough to supply all the teenage boys and girls in the office, probably a couple of dozen.
We used them for our morning and afternoon breaks, when the tea/coffee lady came round with her trolley. They were far better than the manky mugs the firm supplied.
One of the managers after one of the girls came back with his and her coffee, started to make a grap for the one in the glass cup.

"No! That's mine, she said."

"Why can't I have mine in a glass cup?"

"You can, but you'll have to pinch it from a coffee bar first!"

We had another wheeze.
We all got issued with luncheon vouchers to the value of 3/- a day. That's 15p in today's money. That was enough for a dinner, sweet and a cup of tea in most cheap restaurants and cafes in the West End.
The amount was determined by the Government because a greater value would be taxable. This helped keep the price of meals down in London restaurants and cafes.
Now one of the girls was in charge of paying out the bills from the restaurants. They had to submit an invoice each month with the cancelled luncheon vouchers attached. But some restaurants and cafes didn't bother to cancel all the vouchers, so quite a few of them got "recycled" by we kids.

Happy days!

They got happier, at both aged nineteen, my girlfriend and I moved into a flat on the top floor of a milk bar at the top end of Shaftesbury Avenue. We lived there for a year. Then got married. We're still together today. We were two of the first members of Ronnie Scott's original club. Our membership numbers were 7 and 8. I answered an advert for it in the Melody Maker before it opened. It cost us 7/6d each to join. I think it's over three hundred quid now.
We spent many week-day nights in there, as it was free during the week for members and warmer than our flat!

 

[Christian B]

Nothing like 'em.
Did they sound good?
Did they sound bad?
I can't really remember, but they certainly served their purpose, and did it quite well.

My favorite jukebox story:
The wife and I were traveling for work somewhere in the south. It was either KY or Alabama or something.
We were hungry and a bit tired.
We found some hole in the wall chicken and pizza joint and grabbed a seat.
We placed our order.

Everything was rather subdued and mellow. The place was almost empty, that is, until some trailer park resident showed up with her litter of filthy kids.
Their whole scene was rather out of control.

We got our food, and were just finishing when trailer park Dad showed up to join trailer park Mom, and trailer trash kids.

As we were getting ready to go, Dad asked mom for some change for the Jukebox.
Just as soon as Mom was reaching for her purse.....
What are you going to play????
You're not going to play any of that goddamn Jimmy Buffet are you??!!
You know how much I hate that Jimmy Buffet!!!
Don't you play any of that Jimmy Buffet, you hear me Jethro?
( I don't remember if his name was really Jethro, but in this story and in my head it sounds about right)
Just don't play that Jimmy Buffet, I hate that Jimmy Buffet guy, don't play it!!!!
Just no Jimmy Buffet!
Play anything else you want, but don't play that F********** Jimmy Buffet!!!!

As we headed for the door, the Gremlins got a hold of me.
I stopped at the jukebox on the way out the door before Jethro got there.
I stuffed a $5 in the thing, and picked every single Jimmy Buffet song on the thing.
I can't remember how many there were, or how many $5 bought, but it was a bunch!

Oh to have been a fly on the wall!

Love it! I did something similar once. I was having a burger at Guy's Charcoal Pit (yes, that was the real name) with my friends Bob and Greg, and we were playing the jukebox the whole time. In walked some guys we vaguely knew, who immediately started complaining about the music. When our selections were done, they took over, and played some songs that we really didn't like while making snide remarks about finally getting some music that wasn't total crap. Well, we were basically done, and the other gang still didn't have their food as we were heading out the door. Timing being everything, we lucked out, and their last song ended just as we were passing the jukebox. We each dug out a quarter, and based on our antagonists musical choices picked out something especially appropriate. Yup. Mungo Jerry's "In The Summertime" must have still been playing when they were done eating. We were hopeful that indigestion ensued. As you suggest, Oh to have been a fly....

 

[Doghouse]

Even back in the late fifties and early sixties, it was possible for the operator to tell which records were popular and which weren't and it was all done mechanically.
If you look at my video. In front of the turntable there is a large wheel. In this are as many knotched arms as there are records in the machine. Each time a record was played, a lever pushed the appropriate arm out by one knotch.. Each of these arms had the number of the record on it. So an operator could change those records that had the fewest, or no plays. There's a button in the centre of the wheel which when pressed made the spring loaded arms all snap back to zero.

 

[MisterDK]

I still want a juke box - an early Seeburg stereo - either a model 220 or 222, from memory. They keep going up in price, but someday I’ll pick one up. From memory, they sounded good - maybe a bit lacking in treble and a bit bass heavy.
But - they were so cool. I’ve got a couple thousand 45’s just sitting here, waiting for one.

 

[dwaller131]

I still want a juke box - an early Seeburg stereo - either a model 220 or 222, from memory. They keep going up in price, but someday I’ll pick one up. From memory, they sounded good - maybe a bit lacking in treble and a bit bass heavy.
But - they were so cool. I’ve got a couple thousand 45’s just sitting here, waiting for one.

IIRC the 222 was Seeburg's first Stereo box, and they made sure you knew it with bold graphics for CHANNEL 1 and CHANNEL 2 above the speakers, along with different color lighting for each side of the front of the divided cabinet. These also used Seeburg's Tormat memory unit, one of the most (if not THE most) reliable units available.

 

[Doghouse]

If you want to see photos of pretty much all the models and features of the main four manufacturers of jukeboxes, you will find them here.

http://www.pinballrebel.com/archive/archive.htm

 

[NH-MAN]

If you want to see photos of pretty much all the models and features of the main four manufacturers of jukeboxes, you will find them here.

http://www.pinballrebel.com/archive/archive.htm

Thanks for the link

I found the one we used to hook up stuff to in my other post.

Rowe Ami JBM 200 TROPICANA Jukebox of 1964

http://www.pinballrebel.com/archive/ami/jbm/jbm.htm

 

[Chilibrother]

Can't resist. When I hear "jukebox" I think of 1979. My parents agreed to let a foreign exchange student spend the night on her way to her host family. Her bus left at dawn and my sister volunteered to make the 5:00 am drive to take her to the bus station. I was told to go along (as if 15 y.o. me was significant protection for two young ladies in a bus station). Bus was late and we decided to have breakfast at the station's 24 hour diner. After we ordered, Helga (or whatever her name was) scurried over to the (previously silent) jukebox. Pro Tip: At 5:30 am the mostly hungover customers at an all night diner do NOT want to hear "The Age of Aquarius" blasting out. Looks that could kill. Angry mumbling. If there had been pitchforks and torches handy I think we would have been goners.

Actually, the most memorable part of that morning was when I left our booth to go pay the check. I was halfway across the room when my sister, then about eight months pregnant, stood up and shouted "OH SURE. GO AHEAD. JUST GET ON THAT BUS AND LEAVE ME LIKE THIS!" I can only imagine how red-faced I was as I paid the cashier and slunk out the door

 

[Djcoolray]

Like everything else, it depends upon the applied knowledge and the theory behind its design. Because nothing is ever the same. If many people are lazy and only just plug something in and play it as is, your going to get the same experience. But when there are theater speakers throughout a large chicken and ribs joint hooked up to a Wurlitzer from an owner that knew stereo equipment, well you have a completely different situation. Back in the late sixties, early seventies there was such a place in Gilroy, CA. that could easily hold over a hundred people and was popular with the youth because of the food, the amount of room for friends and the juke box always had the latest 45’s. The sound was incredible as was the food....

 

[Multiplex]

Great thread! I can definitely tell I’m one of the younger ones here... But I have always found stuff like this to be interesting. Love the videos of them operating.

When I was a young kid growing up in the 80’s I remember seeing and hearing a small handful of jukeboxes, but at that age they didn’t particularly stick out. By the late 80’s, jukeboxes seemed pretty much to no longer be a thing. There were a few retro diners that had vintage style “jukeboxes” that spun CDs, though. They looked cool enough, with their color changing lights, bubbles crawling up the sides through tubes, and a CD twirling around in front of mirrors at the top. Not the real deal, though.

But, I remember one time I went to an indoor amusement arcade as a teenager around 1994 ish and I heard it... Wow from an off center pressing! I went over to check out the dusty old beast, and sure enough, it was a real jukebox spinning 45s! Not sure who made it, but it was a big blocky silver thing, probably from the late 70’s. It was stereo, looked like two 12’s on the bottom, and two oval, maybe 4x6” speakers above the window, IIRC. It sounded alright, big and loud, but a little fuzzy. The stylus probably hadn’t been changed in a long time, and probably, neither had the records. It was playing some 80’s pop song along the lines of Sunglasses At Night by Corey Hart, though I’m not entirely sure if that was the exact record any more. I remember thinking how cool it was that they still had a “real” working jukebox. No doubt for them it was just a novelty by that point.

Always though it would be cool to own one, myself... My girlfriend is likely to disagree.

 

[Doghouse]

This is a sales flyer for my youngest jukebox from 1976.
This was an era when Rock-Ola and other manufacturers were trying to go "upmarket." Attempting to get their machines into hotels and posh bars. The idea was to make the machines look less like a jukebox.

The graphic on this one is a reproduction of the painting "Sunlight Effect Under the Poplars" by Claude Monet.




The problem with such graphics is that with a light behind them for decades, they start to go blue as did the ones on my other jukebox before I changed them.

When I bought this machine I had to clean 30 years of cigarette tar off it inside and out (as I did the other, both had been in different private homes for far longer than in a bar or wherever). The graphic had gone nearly totally blue.

I struck lucky in that I'd been buying a few bits from a jukebox spare parts supplier in North London and he happened to have a few "new old stock" replacements. I could hardly believe he only wanted a fiver for one. So it brought mine back to near new cosmetic condition.






For jukebox lovers, it's interesting when you see them in films and TV. You recognise if they've got it "right."

Too often directors call for a jukebox to be in a scene and get it wrong. Like in an episode of the TV series WP 56, a drama set in 1956. In a cafe scene there's a Ditchburn Music Maker, that particular model wasn't manufactured until 1966.

In others they get it right. In the 1947 Film Noir "Out of the Past." Robert Mitchum goes into a roadside diner, in it is a brand new Wurlitzer 1015, as it would be.

There's three jukeboxes in different bars in one of my favourite films."Lone Star." (worth watching) all correct for the period.