US1303208A - Phomtogbaph-hobn - Google Patents

Description

' E.L.KENYON. PHONOGRAPH "03ml,"- APPLICATION "LIP FEB. Ik-

Patented May 6, 191a.

ELMER L. KENYON, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

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Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May 6, 1919.

Application filed February 18, 1916. Serial No. 79,022.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ELMER LAWTON KEN- YoN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Phonograph-Horns, of which the following is the specification.

This invention relates to sound intensifying horns and particularly to means for clarifying the tones delivered by such horns and to avoiding the confusion thereof, incident to the use of these horns as heretofore made.

As well lmown, horns for phonographs, or for other similar purposes, are designed to increase the loudness of the tones entering the horn. This is accomplished by confining the sonorously vibrating air within the limiting walls of horns, or so-called resonance boxes, or resonance chambers, thus carrying the sound in one general direction, and also utilizing the well known principle of resonance. While this method is eflicacious and has no counteracting disadvantages where merelloudness of sound is the desider: atum, as in fog horns and the like, it does introduce serious disadvantages inthe reproduction of music.

A long, uninterrupted horn applied to a phonograph not only kills many of the finer notes but more or less noticeably confuses the music produced thereby, because it introduces tones produced by the horn vibrating irregularly in an attempt to respond as a unit to difi'erent vibrations set up in different parts of the horn by the music, and

also because the horn entire is generally too unwieldy to respond at once .to the changing vibrations of the music, thus in a horn of ordinary length the closing vibrations in response to one note will interfere with the opening vibrations in response to another note.

It is the object of the invention to remedy the defects and disadvantages above described and to produce. a horn, particularly applicable for intensifying fine and delicate music, in which extraneous audible tones will be diminished and in which clash or confusion of different parts of the horn atthe same time instead of producing a perfeet response to the music will be rendered impossible. v

I have also discovered a large amount of blur in rendition of fine music is due to an excessive vibration at the mouth of the horn. This phenomenon may be easily understood when it is considered that all of the particles of the horn, between the two ends thereof, are constrained by particles on both sides but that the end of the horn is free and unconstrained. With vibrations traveling from the inner to the outer edge of a phonograph horn, the free end or mouth vibrates with an excessive amplitude and so produces a variation in the tone different from that produced by a synchronous vibration of the body of the horn and tending ,to blur the music.

It is a further object of my invention therefore to prevent this excessive vibration at the end of the horn, first, by tightly binding said end to the body of the born, or sec- 0nd, to weight the end of the horn, or both,

whereby the-particles at the end of the horn will be prevented from vibrating excessively, but will have their vibrations brought into uniformity with those in'the body of the horn, thus eliminating any interfering vibra- -tions and encouraging those that improve In the drawings, 1 represents the casing of a phonograph, the details of which are not important to the invention; 2 represents the customary bracket or arm, pivotally supporting the phonograph horn by means of the carrier 3 and pivot 4 as shown. I divide a horn into a plurality of independent sections, alined however, so that their contour lies in acontinuous surface. The sections somewhat exaggerated in the drawing but should be appreciable. With the horn made up of sections as indicated, it will be impossible for vibrations to travel from one section to another. Extraneous tones in the various individual sections will be absent because each section is made small enough so that it can respond as a unit and completely to the vibrations set up by the music in it and will not be dampened by the lagging effect of a large volume of material integral with it, which is not responding to the same musical vibrations but is setting .up inharmonious' and-unsympathetic vibrations of its own. If extraneous tones are present in the individual section they will be so feeble as to be inaudible. By extraneous tones are meant tones not intended in the music and resulting either from the failure of thehorn as a whole to vibrate correctly or because the vibration of some region of the horn is hampered by the lagging effect of some other part of the horn not quickly enough assuming the required vibration. Of course the length and general dimensions of the sectionsare matters of importance inasmuch as for different kinds of music it is probable that different sections would be preferable. This, however, must be determined by actual experiment, it being obvious that there must be some length which would give the best results with each and every kind of music and one series of lengths for the different sections which would give very much better results than a solid horn for any kind of music generally played upon the phonograph.

The described constructions of the horn will not diminish the volume of sound because it does not in the least interfere with either of the two principles described at the beginning of the specification, which are responsible for increasing the volume. In so far as concerns delivering the music in the same general direction, a sectional horn arranged according to my invention is substantially as good as a solid horn. In so far as concerns resonance, the sound increasing efiect in my horn will be substantially as great as that of a solid horn of the same size and shape because the resonance will be substantially the same. It is, of course, obvious that the sections may overlap, provided the passage of vibrations from one to another be prevented by padding or the like.

To eliminate or diminish the whip action, I provide at both free ends of each section,

a tight metal crimping band or cap, suchv as illustrated in the drawings by reference character 7. This band binds the particles at the end'of the horn more tightly to-the body of the horn than the particles in the body of the horn are bound to the adjoining particles thus introducing a more uniform vibration of the entire section, and preventing excess vibrations or whip action at the end of the horn. It would also be possible to entirely sheath the horn or horn section in metal or other material crimping this material more tightly at or adjacent theends than it is bound to the body portion of the horn or horn section.

I claim:

1. A horn for sound intensifying, comprising a plurality of sections adapted to make an interrupted conical shaped horn when supported in line, means to support said sections with their axes in alinement, and having the end'periphery of each section spaced from the end periphery of the adjoining section, whereby the superficial periphery of said assembled sections will lie substantially in a cone and the individual vibrations of the sections will be permitted.

2. In apparatus of the class described, a horn comprising a plurality of sections arranged and supported in alinement, each section spaced from the preceding one and each free for individual vibration and the periphery of all sections lying within a regular continuous surface.

3. In apparatus ofthe class described, a horn comprising a plurality of sectionsarranged. and supported in alinement, each section spaced from the preceding one and the periphery of all sections lying within a regular continuous surface, and each intervening space between sections bridged in an airtight" manner but without damping the individual vibration of the sections so that the vibrations of one section shall interfere as little as possible with those adjoining.

4. A sound intensifying apparatus comprising a horn made up of a plurality of separate sections supported for free individual vibration, each whereof,'is supported independently for independent vibration, but all of which are supported with their axes in alinement.

5. A sound intensifying apparatus of the class described, comprising a body portion made up of a plurality .of separate sections, each ofsaid sections supported independently for independent vibration, and means for supporting said sections in spaced apart relation with their respective longitudmal central lines falling in a continuous line.

6. A sound intensifying instrument, comprising an interrupted horn made up of a plurality of separate sections each spaced from the preceding section and supported .forfree individual vibration, metallic reinmy name to this specification in the presence forcements tightly binding and weighting of two Witnesses. the ends of said sections, whereby to make the vibrations at the ends of each section ELMER KENYON' 5 uniform with those of the center 'without Witnesses:

preventing the vibration of the section. Y SEBASTIAN HmToN,

In witness whereof, I hereunto subscribe MARION EPHGRAYE.

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