hi-fi

[John Rumm]

A well known technique for lowering the volume on a parabolic horn "amplifier" as used on old gramophones...

[John Rumm]

Depends on how sweaty the sock is...

[whisky-dave]

I'm sure my socks must be radioactive as half of them seem to disapear over time leaving me with just one half of a pair left, that is what is meant b y half-Life isn't it. ;-) (other than the game of course)

[Bill Wright]

I thought all socks were sweaty.

Bill

[newshound]

And perhaps the origin of the phrase?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Prehaps, but te evidence is more that itwas simply another 'gib stoppeer' idiom along with corks and bungs.

I certainly remember 'put a cork in it' being a common phrase in my childhood. As well as wind up gramphones.

We used to put pullovers in them. Socks were a bit too small.

[Robin]

Socks were used long before the gramophone was invented to gag people - e.g. in burglaries where the homeowner awoke. Hence a pair of socks in the possession of someone "going equipped" could be a "weapon" - even if clean socks.

[Marland]

Shouldn?t be called Eye Fi

GH

[Bill Wright]

I say that's jolly witty!

Bill

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Could date from long before those. Trumpets, etc?

[John Rumm]

Trumpets etc have designed for purpose mutes though...

[The Natural Philosopher]

socks, corks and bungs are just things you use to stop the flow in barrels etc.

dont think there is any more to it than that.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

True. But can well imagine a sock would be a big help with someone practising the bugle. ;-)

[Terry Casey]

Reminds me of a trick we used to play with those midget Japanese 6 transistor radios which were popular in the mid

60s.

Take a newspaper or magazine and roll it up into a tube with the internal diameter matching the size of the speaker and hold it so that it pressed on the case over the speaker grille.

The improvement, especially to the bass response was amazing!

There was one cabinet style that had the circular grille mounted in a small projection on the case so, if you were lucky, you could lay the radio on its back and use a strong elastic band to hold the tube in place on the projection.

I noticed in Woolies one day that they were selling extension speakers for these sets which plugged into the earphone socket. It was a small speaker - ~2.5" - mounted in the centre of a decorated plastic tube about 10" long.

It was a pity they didn't comnnect a radio to the display model - I imagine it would have sounded very good.

[Max Demian]

I always assumed that they had a speaker each end, but I never had one. They wouldn't work with most modern devices as I expect the sockets would only power an earphone. In these days the earphone socket connected to the speaker output circuit with a cutout when you plugged something it. Do you remember the awful sound from the earpieces in those days?

[Cursitor Doom]

Chrystal earpieces were great for saving on battery life, but they're really no good for music. Speech, yes, but not music.

[Max Demian]

The magnetic ones were as bad, with a tinny diaphragm (almost literally).

[Terry Casey]

Definitely only one - I remember picking up the one on display and looking through the open plastic grilles on each end of the tube!

I've no idea but, thinking about it, the volume obtained from earphones actually connected in place of the speaker isn't really any different to that from my modern phone.

I was always impressed by the quality of the early crystal based earphones but never had anything to do with the first generation of magnetic types, so perhaps they were inferior?

[Pamela]

As I recall, those magnetic ones sounded worse than crystal earpieces and were less sensitive.