1949-1950? Zenith Micro Adapter 45 rpm player for Zenith Phonograph
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
- This was probably the answer to RCA Victors 45 rpm attachment player to play the "new" 45 rpm records that were becoming popular back in the late 40`s. In advertisements of the day, Zenith described this unit as follows:......"Here is the adapter your customers are looking for. It`s small, compact, and fits inside the phonograph compartment, sits on top of the existing record players turntable and reproduces the new 7" 33 1/3 and 45 rpm records with the superb tonal quality of the world famous Cobra tone arm. That`s because the latest Zenith triumph includes a specially designed MICRO COBRA. It`s amazingly light needle pressure makes possible perfect tracking on 7" thereby assuring the ultimate in tone quality and virtually eliminating record wear"......... And for a 67 year old machine, it does`nt sound too bad. .
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Wow what a cute little turntable.
great find and great video. Thank you, I really enjoyed it.
Just fascinating, amazing piece of engineering history and ingenuity!. On the other hand, this is hysterical, how many tone arms can one turntable have, love it!
There is simply never enough tonearms.
@Donald Lentz That was Zenith's trademark "Cobra-Matic" tone arm...that's why it's shaped like a snake
@@UnforgetableLuncheon Right! 1 for each speed!
This thing is absolutely awesome! I love it. It's so damn complicated! It's perfect. I wish I had one!
@@seatboi They even have snake eyes.
That has got to be rather rare. Fascinating. Thanks for sharing this wonderful piece of history.
What a funky setup...I LOVE it!
WONDERFUL piece of nostalgic technology! Thanks for demonstrating it! I'm surprised the copyright police didn't shut it down especially with the Elvis song...They shut a BUNCH of MY 45-playing videos down and said it was "copyright infringement"
That was something. I wouldn't have believed something like that existed; it sounded great. I will be looking forward to your next video whenever you get around to making one!
I own a 1959 Zenith Stereophonic console.. I got it in near brand-new condition about 10 years ago. All the tubes are still in excellent working condition. It only has one "Cobra" style tone arm, with a cylindrical adapter for 45s... it has a built-in setting for 16s, 33s, 45s and 78s. I only own 33 full-sized records, though. Great video. Thanks for sharing!
that's one awesome invention thanks for sharing it
this is so amazing I have seen them in other videos but this is the best looking one I have seen and the best sounding one as well. it is so great to see all the different types of styles of electronic attachments . thank you for posting this all the best
tough213 you're welcome buddy. thanks very much for watching.
amberola1b I
A real Rube Goldberg device! Three tone arms. And no 45 rpm changer so you could stack discs unlike the RCA player. The Zenith really is the poster child for this transitional period.
The way you did the video is simply awesome.Its clear, concise and most importantly informative covering a-z leaving nothing to guess or imagination. Very neat and well done. Its genuinely appreciated.
You further mentioned in one of the reply that you have GRAMDECK. I searched on the net, there are few but certainly not as much informative as I would prefer to. Can you do a similar informational video on GRAMDECK too and post it ? Many thanks in advance.
I will try to do a video in the near future. Thanks for watching the video.
@@amberola1b Excitedly looking forward to it.
Interesting, learn something new everyday...and sounds pretty good too!
That's a fascinating attachment. I'm surprised it works and sound as good as it does. From what I read it looked like record companies and phonograph manufacturers in the early 50's really didn't know what speed was going to catch on or not, so you got crazy turntables like this. Anyway I'm glad it worked out the way it did.
That is very cool. Thank you for sharing it. Eventhough I have never seen one of these before I have seen an adapter that sits on a 78 rpm turntable to play the 33 1/3 rpm LP's. The first RCA 45 rpm record changers were available in multiple styles both as stand alone self contained with their own sound systems and as attachments to plug into your radio or anything with an RCA type jack.
Amazing. Very good video. 👍👍Thanks for posting this. The world of adapter devices is fascinating for all kinds of evolving tech. After RCA started selling the 45s and the 45 players it was not long before the new models of record players/changers from other companies added 45 and 33 RPM speeds and 12-10-7 selector sizes. Reminds me of the various compact cassette adapters and the VHS-C adapters.
That's a cool novel item. Thank you for sharing.
This is a great sounding records .
What a great record player
Thanks, it is a cool little gadget
What a crazy cool adapter! Neat
Lover Please - Clyde McPhatter. That has to be one of my favorite Oldies. (1962). My aunt actually gave me her album, IN STEREO, with this being the title cut of the album. I still have it. Great tune, great player, great video. Thanks!
Randy, The Lazy Comic you're welcome. this little player sounds nice thru the tube amplifier
Glad you found one that works. That's great.
In the 1950's a company made 33 rpm shellacs as kind of EP, the record player couldn't play this and also not home recordings that also could be in normal groove and 33 rpm.
Wow! Just stumbled across your channel today and first watched the old Beatles radio show from your first video. Then I saw this and got curiouser and curiouser. :) As a kid growing up we had a 45 RCA changer for awhile (don't remember what we ran it through, though) and then later on we got a Columbia all in one phonograph with all three (and maybe 4) speeds, until we got a big color TV console stereo radio and phonograph, all tubes and with 12" 3 way speakers built in. Great sound for the day. I have been an audiophile since the early seventies, and am always eager to learn about old hifi, but I have NEVER seen or heard of one of these. What a cool device. Using the 78RPM speed was probably the better choice for lower wow and flutter. Your unit sounded great. Good idea with you using the 45 record on the changer platter to make up for the missing part. I wondered why that was there. Great video!!!
Nice video! It is amazing the way engineers came up with things to improve technology without replacing it! When tape became popular, there were companies that made special turntable adapters to play and record tapes (Wilcox-Gay had a number of units). And remember all the wire recorder adapters for the old 78 record players? Zenith had this adapter device, and I think there were special adapters that flipped or played both sides of a record using your regular turntable.
I am surprised they didn't figure out a way to make toast by using the heat from amplifier and radio tubes! Oh wait, Kenner came out with the "Easy Bake" over driven by a light bulb! Never mind -- except I bet that is REALLY slow cooking when using a CFL bulb!
I know making videos is a challenge for you right now, I certainly understand that -- being in that ball park myself -- but I would LOVE to see a video explaining in more detail how that two tone arm "cobra" record player works, how it plugs into the radio and so on. We had a modern "cobra" tone arm record changer in our Westinghouse console stereo TV that had only one channel! (You had to buy a second console for the second channel. )
Thanks for posting, always enjoy your videos!
clydesight thanks Tim. I would have shown in the video how the plug from the micro adapter plugs into the tone arm but the prongs on the micro adapter were a bit fragile and they kept on bending over instead of staying straight up the way I wanted them to, to plug them into the socket in the tone arm where the cartridge originally went. So instead of demonstrating that I just merely left it at at the way it's been for a while. I'll do a short video maybe tomorrow or maybe tonight depending on how I feel to demonstrate the other two tone arms on the turntable. I just know I've got to get back in the saddle again and start making a few more videos. as always thanks for watching, and good luck on your realistic Radio Shack tape recorder. Like some of the other people who've left comments for you say, put it away for a little while until you feel rejuvenated again to tackle it and then just look at it for a while and figure out what might have gone wrong.
cute little adapter!! apparently your radionic cartridges are still performing.
this is so cool, I love things like this.
I’d never seen this 45 adapter before; a bit cumbersome, but it got the job done for the new 45 RPM format in its early days. It saved from having to buy a new phonograph.
BTW, “I Gotta Know” is my favorite Elvis B side. As for Don’t Be Cruel/Hound Dog, that was a “double A” 45 to me.
Thanks for posting.
that's cool. never seen this adapted. I used to have Philco 1949 phonograph and radio. speed play 33 and 78.
#1., The 1947 Zenith turntable was full automatic and 78rpm speed only. #2., I have a 1948 Model Zenith Micromatic, which has 33 & 78 speeds but full automatic in 78rpm only. It has a 2nd cobra turn arm for 33rpm Lp's, AND it has the 33rpm speed on the table for it, but it is totally manual operation. I believe pictured to be a 1949 Model, as the 2 tone arms are differently situated from my 1948. I think but not sure, the 1950 Zenith Model had all 3 speeds on the table and only 1 tone-arm with a flip over needle??? I know for a fact, the 45rpm was 1st introduced in the 1949 model year and test marketed in the big cities.
Interesting device. I recognized the song. Clyde Mcphatter, Lover Please.
WOW!!!! 3 tone arms on one turntable! Never saw that! I guess the red tone arm is for 78s which was the standard record format until Columbia came out with 12" LPs in 1948 and RCA introduced 7" 45s a year later. Existing 78 record players had to accommodate the new formats. The green tone arms accommodate LPs and 45s.
My uncle owned an RCA console from about 1947. Of course, it only played 78s. When LPs and 45s came in, he removed the 78 changer and replaced it with a Webcor multi-speed unit. Not sure if it was 3 or 4 speed.
great! Reminds me of the car 8-track adapters that were used for cassettes.
margaretsville yea, i had one of them. I have a 2004 Buick lesabre that still had a factory cassette player in it, and I bought one of those cassette adapters with a cable on it and earphone Jack on the other end that I can plug my cellphone into to play Internet radio stations through so I still have and use that in my car.
Have one, those seemed to have problems with the tape fitting into the car player, and aligning well. Mainly the wire would get stuck, or bind when you put in the adaptor. But it works but sometimes in auto reverse units it would freak out the car unit and reverse the mech over and over.
I thought my gramdeck tape deck adaptor was really something but this adaptor is wow!
leathandrubb I've also got a Gramdeck. I think it's pretty neat and the audio quality is really very good.
Neat piece of hardware.
It works great speed seems good..Great interesting well made video
Thanks for showing that little ingenious unit working. I simply like how odd it looks. Like watching a jukebox play. That's one thing with the cobra tone arms - they're almost too light. You have to handle them gingerly. Those styluses are pricey!
Thanks for watching. Yes, the styli are expensive. I love this little attachment.
cool. I love this.
สุดยอดครับผม
NICE!!
Cool
That is THE Frankenphono! How many tonearms does that thing have?! lol Good show man!
Does all three tone arms have the Cobra cartridge ?? The tone arms look like that of the Zenith Cobramatic! That is an interesting adapter for the 45's a good temporary player for the 45's until the permanent design change came into effect!!
John Bellas yes, all three tonearms are cobra
That was really neat. Amazing what they came up with to adjust to new technology. I was wondering, how were you able to play an entire copyrighted song and not get a copyright strike. I can't do over 2 seconds without getting hit.
I guess you're lucky if you're catching RUclips off guard and they don't catch you right away. I've had videos that I've made up to 7 years ago with no complaints and then all of a sudden they catch up to me and slap me with a copyright infringement. It's really annoying, and I just ignore it because they can't do anything to me and my videos just go on being watched. These people are really just a big pain in the neck.
CrazY👌
That is cool but with no automatic functions on a short record, it may be a hard sell.
OMG what a kludge. When I saw the caption, I was picturing some kind of planetary thing that would sit like a stack of records on the original spindle (if it were still 1948, I could probably patent that idea). This is just a mess; cool collector's item, and it play's surprisingly well, but it's probably a good thing they didn't sell many of them.
9:53 The styling of this setup probably wouldn't appeal to anyone with a bad case of ophidiophobia.
Probably not fit into portable record players, lack of space needed to allow the 5 inch 45 discs to work sticking out to the front left of the platter. You would need an open type record player instead.
That record(Lover Please)! is from 1962!
Thanks. :)
Nick Haag until now I had never heard Lover Please
The beginning of "Lover Please" sounds a bit like "Wipeout."
I just want to know why Zenith made their tonearms look like a cobra head.
It's quite Rube Goldberg! Awkward to use, but cute little tonearm. Since the original tonearms don't have a plug-in shell, I wonder how this "plugs" into the arm???
Patrick OBrien actually the original cartridge did plug into the shell. I don't know any real info about these early zenith carts, but if you look them up you'll be able to read about them. So the cable from the micro attachment had a similar looking plug on it that resembled the cartridge and just plugged into the existing shell.
He mentioned an RCA jack, I guess you could just use clip leads to attach it to the wiring at the back of the cartridge. That seems rather poor of a design, it would be better to have a longer shielded cable with an RCA plug to hook directly into the amplifier.
Thanks for explaining the extra 45,as I about to ask. But,what was the first song played...the one on Mercury.
George Price "Lover Please" by Clyde McPhatter
I had a twin Cobra table model for several years, not work, and sold it on eBay about two years ago! I love the Cobra-Matics as well--here's one of mine: ruclips.net/video/R8MPIr4xsJY/видео.html
That is amazing---I never knew such a thing even existed, and I'm no stranger to vintage electronics. I have to say, though, it's also a bit cheesy---one would think that Zenith would come up with a more elegant solution.
YOU SAY IT'S IN POSITION TO PLAY 33'S AND THIS IS THE 45 POSITION 33??
I have the same thing but the 'cobra-matic needle is smaller. Boy, Where do you get one?
Easton High School Sports Videos I will get back-to you on that. I think I do have in address for where I can get them
Hello! I actually am a recent owner of one of these in an amazing condition! If anyone is interest I will be posting on eBay!
RCA gitting all crafty on the record buying public back in 1949.
Hi , did you put a 33 rpm stylous , if you play the 45s with a 78 you culd demage the records
Ferran Melero no, it had the proper stylus in it. In the early days of the Zenith tonearms when they were in tandem like this the cartridge as well as the tonearm was the same color
amberola1b gre
Can you play 16 rpm on it
No, it's just 33 1/3 and 45 rpm only
Your other video is blocked for some reason
Turkeydoodlers L. I know, I remade the video and the second one should still be there. see if you can check it out.
A1
Yikes. A bit too much effort to get a record played. Interesting piece of equipment, but ...