1920s Vtg Antique Movie Theater Public Address Cinema Speaker Horn 5’10” Large

[sarahperdue]

This speaker horn is purported to be salvage from the original Tuscaloosa County High School Stadium.

Offers considered. Cross posted.

This speaker horn appears to be from the 1920s and looks like it. The narrow end is constructed from 2 sections of steel or iron. These metal sections extend for a total of 2' 11," each section is over 1 foot long. The first section is 1' 3.5" and the second section is 1' 8.75." The large end is constructed from a material that is similar to fiberglass but seems to be natural fiber based, possibly canvas. This horn is 5' 10" long.

The large end is an oval that has a diameter of 2' 6" across the longest part. It is not clear if it was designed as an oval or has been misshaped over time. The large end has a metal ring that protects the edge. The edge is bent and cracked. The horn also appears to have sustained some kind of crushing along its vertical axis. The picture of the interior of the wide part shows twisting consistent with crushing.

It has a metal reinforcing band about 1.5' from the wide end and rests on three contoured wooden support cradles. The longest cradle is 4' 10,' the middle cradle is 3' 4," and the shortest is 2' 6."

The entire piece is painted black. The paint has wear and chipping and has cracked off of several large parts of the fiber section. This horn does not include a speaker driver of any kind. It is sold as is.

 

[tolivac]

Oh Geez,why was this taken down-I wanted to see the antique horn cinema speaker!Too many electronic and movie theater equipment collectors-these horn speakers have high value!And esp if the amp racks come with it-Western electric made these.Then RCA made sound equipment-somewhat like what you see today.RCA used the folded horn Bass speaker enclosures-sort of like the Altec VOICE OF THE THEATER systems.

 

[firedome]

folded theater horns

from the '20s and '30s are SUPER valuable, most have gone to collectors in Japan. Generally made by Western Electric and RCA using large compression drivers and huge wooden horns, driven by tube amplifiers also made by them. James B. Lansing got started with WE's All Technical Services Division which became AlTec when spun off and he later founded JBL. I'd also like to see the pics - someone may have gotten one heck of a deal if the seller didn't know what it is!

 

[ovrphil]

SARAHPERDUE WHERE ARE YOU?

Not to sound like "Car54, Where Are You?" but, if you see this, please repost for a few others to see again.

Thanks,

Phil

 

[ovrphil]

Just for fun - check this speaker out

someone is posting in CL - "Looking for Old/Vintage Audio/Stereo Gear! Working or Not!!! - $1000 (Atlanta & Surrounding)"

I've never seen speakers like this.

 

[firedome]

pretty sure that's a Photoshop job...

but there actually was a guy who made a horn out of concrete that was so big that the opening into the house took up a whole house wall and the rest was outside in the yard! pics in probably High Fidelity in the '50s.

 

[revvinkevin]

OK......

 

 

Here are some cinema speakers that haven't been photoshop'd.

 

 

[sarahperdue]

Confessions...it was me

Hi guys,

Not sure why I deleted the post. What a teaser. And deleting it makes no sense since I want to find a home for this thing!

It is very, very big and appears to be made of masonite. I found a similar one marked RCA and cannot find it now.

So, without further ado, here's the speaker horn in question

 

[tolivac]

Nice---but you will need the "driver" to make it work.(the part that contains the voice coil,magnet,and diaphragm)Speakers of that era used eltctromagnetc feilds-a power supply unit energized the magnet coil.No PM speakers were available then.Cool find,though.

 

[sarahperdue]

found...

a picture online of an RCA one.

and yup, I know that this is the horn only and requires a driver to work. I don't know much at all about vintage audio, but I've been selling on eBay for a while. I bought a large lot of vtg radio and jukebox parts for a buyer in Colorado, and this is one of the parts left over.

Sarah

 

[tolivac]

RCA and Western Electric supplied the early cinemas with sound equipment for the early "Talkies" movies.Horns were highly efficient-becuase the single ended early tube amps were very low powered.And the horn was good at "forcing" the sound thru woven or perforated screens.Still to this day-esp the mid and high frequencies.Most of the early cinema sound system were pretty much voice response only.And no subwoofers in those days.Those old horns may still be lurking in the basements and behind the screens storage areas-esp the older theaters.Often when those were replaced with newer equipment the older speakers were put in the basement and forgotten.Good that they can be discovered later!The horn could be made from metal or even plaster.The plaster horns were very rare becuase they can easily be broken.The Western Electric horns kinda look like a "french" horn musical instrument.And they were VERY large-the mouth was like 3-4 ft square.And the amps used with the horn drivers-often the whole sound racks are desired by audio gear collectors or collectors of early theater equipment.And they make the old stuff work again!It is early technical history and should be preserved.and think of the early,famous actors voices heard over these items for the first time!Before the "talkies" folks NEVER actually heard their favorite actors voices!

 

[tomturbomatic]

The Howard Theater in Washington, DC still has the Vitaphone speaker above the screen. Most people don't know what the Vitaphone process was, but it was a record that was synchronized with the reel of film to give the effect of talking motion pictures before the sound carrier was added to the film to make real "talkies." I learned about it in the Bible of motion picture theater history The Best Remaining Seats by Ben M. Hall.

 

[circlew]

The Vitaphone system was originally developed by Western Electric, and acquired by Warner Brothers shortly thereafter. Warner used it until sometime in '31, then switched to the RCA Photophone optical soundtrack, which was also used by RKO and some other studios. Warner continued to use the name Vitaphone for many years thereafter for releases with optical sound.

The sound on disc system had obvious faults that made it unwieldly to use. The most well known titles like "The Jazz Singer" were converted to optical sound, but many of the lesser known ones were not. Many of these have the film elements in the studio vault, but the sound discs are missing. The Vitaphone Project has located the discs for quite a few of them.

The earliest sound films had mostly music and sound effects, with little or no speaking by the actors.

 

[tolivac]

There is a good desription about the Vitaphone and Photophone systems on the "Film-Tech" website.And yes,some projectors at that time were equipped to use either system.The projectionist had to manually throw a switch on the projector to use the Photophone soundhead or the Vitaphone TT.I do remember when someone on that site commented about folks attending talkie movies that did have some parts where the actors did have dialog.And of course was very funny if the Vitaphone disc wasn't properly cued.The discs were marked with Q-marks so the projectionist could properly Q the disc to the film.The discs also had limited playback life-often only twenty plays.There was a box on the disc that the projectionist wwould check each time the disc was played.And the stylus in the player had to be replaced often,too.
In the last days of film--we had DTS sound-the soundtrack of the movie was recorded on a special CD.A sync track on the film cued the film to the CD player.The DTS CDs won't play on a standard CD player.