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SIDEBAR
THE TONE TESTS
The Tone Tests were part the extensive promotion of
the Edison diamond disc machine.
Edison took personal interest phonograph advertising,
planning special promotions and exhibits. The Edison diamond disc machine was
designed achieve just this effect and did very
successfully. During the 1920s advertising
expenditure for amusement phonographs increased rapidly. have strong ideas
regarding advertising" told subordinate 1913 and during
the 1920s became heavily involved marketing schemes. The
competition, especially Victor, were heavily involved in
national advertising campaigns newspapers and the new
popular magazines. had follow suit, even though the
"old man" was discouraged the cost national advertising. TAE Inc. Thousands people went concert halls hear
the Tone Tests and were amazed that the talking machine did
sound just like the singer.^" His
ideas naturally leaned more towards technical demonstrations of
the merits diamond disc recreation. This
was precursor the "Is live Memorex" type of
advertising line today.
The idea the Tone Test was show the customer that
the phonograph reproduction was lifelike that was
impossible distinguish from the actual performance. There was certainly more than
