Gramophone Transducer

Your Music from Great-Grandpa's Gramophone

Dave Ehnebuske

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Description

I have an acoustic gramophone from the early years of the 20th century. It's a really lovely piece of gear. Wind it up, put on a 10-inch 78-RPM record, position the needle on a lead-in groove, and out comes the music. No electricity at all.

I have a small collection of 78s for it, and the styles of music recorded on them goes well with the "acoustic" sound that comes out. But I found myself wishing I could get some 78s of more recent music, mostly just to see how it would sound on an acoustic gramophone.

Thoughts strayed to making a device to engrave new 78-RPM records. An interesting project, and certainly doable using modern methods, but a lot of work. Then is struck me, "Why go through all the trouble of making a record that wiggles the needle when I can wiggle the needle much more directly?" And so, this small project was born.

Details

Version 1 of this project – shown here – consists of an LM386-based audio amplifier driving a bone-conduction audio transducer. The transducer has been fitted with a cylindrical metal rest into which the gramophone's needle is placed. The result is that incoming audio vibrates the gramophone's needle just as the groove of a 78 record would: It's like having my whole collection of digital music as 78s.

Here's a short demo of it doing it's thing. With no blinkies, no lasers and no robotic arms, it's not much to look at, but it does work!