Edison "Ediphone Office Cylinder Player/ Recorder"

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semisynthetic
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Edison "Ediphone Office Cylinder Player/ Recorder"

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I recently purchased a Edison "Ediphone" cylinder player that was once used by the owner of a Woolworths Department Store. The "Ediphone" is really two units, both work on 120V AC or DC current, but according to the specs, exact voltage is not critical. The recording "half" of the set uses bakelite or wax cylinders with which letters, etc. were once dictated by the owner, recorded, and the letter typed by a secretary listening with a head-set. I'm sorry that I don't have photos here. The player "half" looks like an early R2D2 unit, and is made of HEAVY gauge enameled steel. In a steel case, I found 9 cylinders on, surprise, "How To Use The Ediphone". Two other cases contained music and dictated letters, but the REALLY fun find was the case of 21 UNRECORDED cylinders. What to do? My answer was to record selections from Brian Eno's "Before and after Science" using a cylinder per selected track. The results of this ironic coupling were absolutely eerie. I placed an excellent quality pick-up microphone within the metal monolith and ran these otherworldly sounds through two 500W McIntosh Tube amps and 3 B&W speakers placed to beam the sound out the windows into a meadow and into a small canyon and stream below the house. Wow. The hint of echo, the truly ambient sound of these cylinders; "Spider and I" combined with the birds and the sunlight,and the intermittent wind outside was great. I'm glad that I my nearest neighbors are 2 miles away on days like this.
"Everything is a Poison; it is the amount or degree that separates one Poison from another"
Paracelsus
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