Music: Orthophone

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Static, the imp that squeals in a radio, has long had a habitat in the polished cabinets of Victrolas. People found that in radio his mewing could be partly controlled, but in talking machines, even expensive ones, his intrusion was unavoidable. Of course it was not really static—the blaring, nasal voice they heard through the playing of a record—but a sound composed of the hum of the operating motor and the vibrations of the mica diaphragm of the soundbox. Driven to desperate shifts by radio competition, the Victor Talking Machine Co. last year set about eliminating this privy hobgoblin. Last week the product of their researches—the Orthophone—was demonstrated. A duralumin diaphragm is substituted for the mica one; the motor is perfectly soundless; its range is five and a half octaves, an increase of two and a half. Most of the improvements were the work of Western Electric Co. engineers—men schooled in the fine-nesses of sound transmission by long years of work on the telephone.