ABSTRACT
Beginning in 1888 Edison produced devices for his phonographs that allowed repeated playing of the cylinder. This repeating attachment was intended for commercial rather than domestic use. It was a forerunner of the coin-op. Several mechanical principles were tried (cord and windlass, chain drive and pulley, etc.), but they were not successful, and none were offered after 1912. However, the mechanism was important in language instruction. [Frow 1978.]
The diaphragm-and-stylus device used to play back cylinders was first known as a speaker, or sometimes as a repeater. By use of a spectacle, those reproducers were mounted in tandem with recorders; the one employed to play what the other had inscribed on the cylinder. By 1889 Edison had found a way to meld those functions into a single device (British patent #19153), which he named the Standard Speaker; it had tracking problems and was replaced in 1893 by the Automatic Speaker, also designated as Model A. It must be remembered that the model numbers of the reproducers had no relation to the model numbers of the phonographs. In 1901 there was a special Gem reproducer for the phonograph of that name; this was replaced in a year by the Model B. This complex
scenario was simplified in 1902 with the arrival of the Model C reproducer, which was used on most Edison machines until 1913. Glass diaphragms of earlier reproducers were replaced by mica and then copper alloy. Model C was intended for the new hard molded records. The Model D was similar, but adapted for the large concert cylinder. For the four-minute cylinder of 1908, a Model H was introduced. A reproducer to permit playing of Amberol records on five-inch concert machines-the Model J-came out in 1909.
