Blue Amberol Records - Technical

Technical

Edison Blue Amberols are made of celluloid over a molded plaster core. The celluloid surface are able to withstand hundreds of playings, with only a moderate increase in surface noise if played on well-maintained machines with a stylus in good condition.

Blue Amberols have a maximum playing time of just over 4 minutes at 160 rpm (a maximum of 4'45" is possible). They can not be played on older machines set up to play the earlier standard of 2 minute cylinders, as the Amberols require a smaller stylus to track the groove and the worm-gear which moves the stylus over the surface of the cylinder must turn at a different rate. However, the Edison company sold kits with gears and reproducers which could be attached to older varieties of cylinder phonographs by those who wished to be able to play the new Blue Amberol records. The Edison company also marketed phonographs capable of playing both the older style 2-minute and the new 4-minute Blue Amberol records; with these machines the user needed to adjust a knob or lever (which changed gearing) and change the reproducer (which held different sizes of styli) when going from one type of record to another.

Internal horn Edison Phonographs designed to play 4-minute cylinders were called Amberolas. The earliest Amberola model, the 1909 Amberola IA, was equipped with selectable 2- and 4-minute gearing, and after initially being sent out fitted with an unmarked Model "L" reproducer with a flattened fishtail weight that was recalled almost immediately as being "unsatisfactory", was refitted with the Model "M" reproducer with flip-over 2- or 4-minute sapphire styli intended to play wax cylinders. There is at least one known example of an early Model M reproducer also fitted with a flattened fishtail weight.

Upon the introduction of Blue Amberols in 1913, the M reproducer was supplanted by the Diamond A reproducer which was capable of playing only celluloid cylinders. Outside horn Edison Phonographs were available with the Diamond B reproducer. Several other Amberola models less expensive than the IA (and later the 4-min only IB and III) were available, such as the V, VI, and X.

After the Edison factory fire of December 1914, the Amberola line was simplified in mechanical and cabinet design resulting in the Amberola 30, 50, and 75 (each serial number indicating the initial retail price of each player). These were equipped with the Diamond C reproducer. The 4-minute only external horn Opera (later renamed Concert) of 1911-1912, which shared the same mechanism as the IB and III, was initially fitted with the Model L reproducer (with sapphire stylus for wax Amberols), but with the introduction of Blue Amberols, shipped with the Diamond A reproducer.