Exclusive! Estey Phonorium

A rare sighting of Estey's 2MP 10 rank "Phonorium" model, circa 1891.
Demonstrated by Chris Cusumano. Instrument owned by Phil Stimmel. The organ still has some issues but having survived a flood, I'd say it's well on its way to a full recovery. Visit Phil's website, The Estey Virtual Museum:
http://www.esteyorgan.com/StylePhonorium.html

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Organ
• Music;
• Reed
• Organ;
• Harmonium;
• Phonorium;
• Estey
• Brattleboro
• VT

[Offshoreorganbuilder]

But what is inside the enormous casework? Not just 10 reed ranks, surely? Thanks for the posting, and I hope the organ is fully restored at some point.

[MasonHamlinOrgans]

@Offshoreorganbuilder The phonorium, unlike any conventional reed organ, is built like a tracker pipe organ with a ventil system; one independent valve for every reed in every chest. The action is stacked vertically behind the pipe facade. There is an awful lot to adjust. But with individual valves the sound can be huge compared to a standard reed instrument. And the key action is pneumatic.

(I'm not the owner of it)

[MasonHamlinOrgans]

Hi, Thanks it was my pleasure to bring these sounds to a greater audience. Hopefully, someday it will be totally playable and we ca hear the Full Organ sound.

[ANDREWLEONARDSMITH]

The Phonorium mechanism is not quite unlike any other conventional Reed organ,as what you describe about the internal structure is remarkably similar to that of The AEOLIAN ORCHESTRELLE which has a virtually IDENTICAL mechanism which came much later.The key action in the Aeolian Orchestrelle is also Pneumatic.is this suction or Pressure?Did Aeolian copy this ?

[Offshoreorganbuilder]

@MasonHamlinOrgans Thanks for this interesting reply - I had no idea. (Sounds like quite a monster!)

[Musique3579]

Oh, if ONLY I could find one of those. Thank you for sharing this very fine video.

[iclt1940]

I've been curious for years to hear a Phonorium. Many thanks for the demonstration. Let's hope others have survived.

Ian

[Velostigmat]

I never thought I'd hear one. WOW!