EDISON LONG PLAY & KITTEN ON THE KEYS 1921 ZEZ CONFREY Diamond Disc Phonograph

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T A Edison's stunning 1926 novelty was a Long Playing Diamond Disc. While a "short" Edison record side plays a maximum of about 4;50 minutes, the Long Playing Diamond Disc clocked an impressive 40 minutes for a 12" record, 24 minutes for a 10" record.

THIS MACHINE IS FOR SALE.
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With this new product, Edison pushed the limits of the technical possible: With 400 lines per ich, the Long Play Disc is actually finer grooved than a modern LP.

While innovative in its own way, the Long Playing Disc was a less than successful response to the new electrically recorded discs. While Victor and Columbia listeners could enjoy thumping bass and earsplitting volume in the usual 3 minute format, the Edison Long Play Disc provided a very soft entertainment of usually rather sedate fare, like opera medleys or Dinner Music.

Always good at backwards compatibility, Edison offered an uncomplicated conversion kit that turned any standard Diamond Disc Phonograph into a Long Playing machine: Just take out the wormgear drive shaft in the motor, and replace it with the self contained two speed gear. The selection lever clips right onto the bedplate. To ensure ample playing time, only 2 spring Laboratory Models should be converted, as a single spring motor may not last through the duration of a record side.

While conversion was easy, and the concept intrigueing for the early adopters, marketing and technology had a number of shortcomings that contravened the practicality of the Long Play Record:

- at launch in 1926, only 6 records were published. Non of them longer works, but all medleys of usually the dull kind.
- Although recorded with some of the quietest Edison surfaces, records had a very low volume (which Edison decreed appropriate for dinner background music), and reproduction seems on occasion fuzzy, sometimes with a pre-echo.
- The manufacture of the 2 mil elliptical diamond tip was a technical challenge, and the immense pressure of the floating weight tested the limits of the condensite surface.
- While mint records play reliably, any of the common Edison quality issues (out of round or slightest warping of the surface) may overstress the groove walls. Records had a tendency to wear fast and start skipping.

It seems that this new product had no measurable success, and today Long Playing Discs and the Long Playing Reproducer are among the rarest items of the Edison production range.




Recorded from original Diamond Disc:

Oct 1926: Demonstration of Long Playing Diamond Disc No 10001 - Carmen Medley
1921: Regular Diamond Disc: Kitten on the Keys- Novelty Ragtime: Zez Confrey's first big success.
This is the A Take of the only side that Confrey ever recorded for Edison: You will hear that Confrey makes quite a number of mistakes. He would not have been the first pianist to be upset about Edison's strategy to publish such an unflattering take.

A word to the sound:
I have recorded the actual record on the machine with an external condensor mike and spliced it into the video. Volume has been adjusted to maximum level without clipping and distortions.

The volume of the long play section represents the actual difference to the volume of the "short" play section.

No peak volume compression or other sound manipulations have been applied. If you find that the volume of my videos are lower than on other videos, the reason may be the absence of artificial compression and volume boosting.

Other than the music, there is again plenty of poking around in the innards of the phonograph to see how everything works, and how gear A meshes with spiral B. etcetera.


Enjoy.

Check out more great tunes on other Edison phonographs at My YouTube Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/user/sanfranphono


More about other machines
on my Changer Website
http://myvintagetv.com/updatepages1/c...

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[mrmjb1960]

At 80 RPM,it was a pretty revolutionary Player for its time,and it is still amazing..to actually play over 30 minutes at that speed..WOW! I'm amazed!

[sanfranphono]

@mrmjb1960 Actually that's a bit of marketing obfuscation, the 10" record played about 12 mins per side, the 12" record 20 mins. so both sides = 24 mins/ 40 mins.

OTOH, late Deutsche Grammophon/ Telefunken regular 78 rpm records with "Engschrift" (Variable groove) get about 10 - 12 minutes per side of a regular, standard groove record, so there are better ways to do it.

[DeLorean4]

If Edison had used his long playing records for classical music he could have directly competed with the Victor red seals and remained in business. Thanks for uploading this to youtube. Simply amazing stuff.

[sanfranphono]

@DeLorean4 In theory, yes, but Edison's acoustic process was not good at all with classical orchestras. His recordings are all the usual studio band arrangements. And then - Edison could not record the full 20 mins directly, they were all dubbed from Diamond discs. Of the 14 or so Long Play titles, there is one record of dubs by German Violinist Carl Flesch. Indeed, the only multi record set that Edison ever offered (I think a Schubert Quartet) was recorded way towards the end of electric era.

[EmmetEarwax]

I have this very record along with a Ernie Jones & Billy Hare record as the two "hill & dale" records in my 78 shellac collection. Edison made them thick -HIS method to make them unbreakable. The flip side is "Monastery Bells Waltz". I just rooted it out and tested it on my stereo to be SURe that the hill & dale grooves would play -my other phonograph's speaker is bummed out.

[DeLorean4]

@DeLorean4 Or rather I should say, complete recordings of classical music.

[luvmyrecords]

WOW - you're too much! Thank you!

[sanfranphono]

@luvmyrecords Well, the Garrards are slow because the oil in the motor and the bushing is gunked up.

Well, if the BSR is a little too fast and if it's an idler wheel, try to put one or two windings of a sliver of scotch tape around the stepped pulley - > bigger diameter - > slower speed.

It pays to have turntables with variable pitch, the DUALs 1200s are excellent, or you get a Garrard 4HF or RC98. (For these videos I do pitch correction in the computer : (

[luvmyrecords]

@sanfranphono :) :) :) :) :) Oh - and THEN we have to deal with the fact that some modern turntables are a liiiiiittttttle fast (BSR was notorious) and the Garrard 120 a teeny bit slow. I'm going to just shut up now and

just enjoy the music! BTW - thanks for a great video and the interesting information!

[luvmyrecords]

@sanfranphono :) :) :) :) :) Oh - and THEN we have to deal with the fact that some modern turntables are a liiiiiittttttle fast (BSR was notorious) and the Garrard 120 a teeny bit slow. I'm going to just shut up now and

just enjoy the music!