Never thought of that, Bernard! You'll lose some bass, though, and modern (i.e. electrically recorded) 78s have a lot more of it than you mihgt think. One thing which you may not know about is that vinyl records had the treble end boosted on the recording for technical reasons which would otherwise lead to a loss of treble on playback. Your record player (phonograph) amplifier compensates by reducing it again; a bit like Dolby, I suppose. But with 78s you do lose this top-end, which you don't if you use a mechanical sound-box. I've got an HMV portable, and it's LOUD! The sound quality is surprisingly good, too. I'm not too happy about the effects of the steel needle on the playing surface; they tell me you should always put it in the run-out groove for about 20 - 30 seconds, just to take the "shoulders" off the point, before you play the recording.

And did you know that Logie Baird recorded video on 78s? They've only recently been replayed with some fancy laser machine; apparently he never got around to inventing a video gramophone to play 'em back on!

Roger, get on the Net -- you can still get the hardware if you make the effort.

Steve