Classic-Banjo

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Do I really need a Tone Amplifier?

Now I know what I have been doing wrong... I need a Washburn "Tone Amplifier" or give up the banjo and buy a "Balanced Saxophone" maybe?

In the good old days Lyon and Healy really knew what Hyperbole was :-)

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Permalink Reply by Jody Stecher on April 9, 2015 at 15:25

Does anyone know what a Tone Amplifier looked like or what sort of sound it produced?

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Permalink Reply by Trapdoor2 on April 9, 2015 at 19:58

It sounds like it might be something like a Bacon FF tone ring ("concave channel...") Should be a patent listing somewhere for it...

https://books.google.com/books?id=E8Iai8gr3jEC&pg=RA2-PA108&...

You can view the full patent (and drawings) by going to Google Patents and entering patent number 1575212

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Permalink Reply by Joel Hooks on April 9, 2015 at 20:14

tone thingy

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Permalink Reply by Jody Stecher on April 9, 2015 at 20:53

The Tone Amplifier seems to be something like the bacon donut ring upside down, but bigger. I have an early Arthur E Smith banjo that has a donut on steroids as tone ring.

Has anyone heard a banjo with a Tone Amplifier? The reference to the back row suggests that volume is being amplified as well as tone. Distantly related to this is the name Paramount gave to their resonator. It was the Acousticon.