Equipment photographs · 3
1 / 3 · Automatic Enunciator distributed P.A. at a yachting event, 1912 (FOH Fig. 1)
Automatic Enunciator distributed P.A. at a yachting event, 1912 (FOH Fig. 1)·FOH magazine; photographer not credited·Rights retained by the rights holder; reproduced for historical commentaryWhy it mattered
- 01
One of the first commercial loudspeakers built to send one voice to many listeners over wires.
- 02
Its makers explicitly pitched it for addressing huge crowds, a direct forerunner of sound reinforcement and of the Musolaphone stadium system.
- 03
David K. Kennedy's FOH survey dates the Automatic Enunciator to 1910, describes its large 1912 deployment by the Associated Yacht and Power Boat Clubs of America, and calls its 1913 Comiskey Park installation baseball's first proto-P.A.: a telephone network driving Musolaphone horns over the grandstand through step-up transformers, before vacuum-tube amplification.
Engineering record
- Reproducer
- A graphophone-style horn turned the telephone-line signal back into sound audible through a room[1]
Original pricing
No reliable period price located
2026 equivalent
Not calculated without a reliable original price.
Public price evidence was not sufficient to publish a defensible original figure.
Use in the field
Installed at the 1912 Spokane Interstate Fair for public announcements[2]
Manuals & original documents
Sources
- 1Replaces Bell Boy (1910)Early Radio History (contemporary press reprint) · archive · 1910
- 2Enunciator Will Oust Hotel Page (1912)Early Radio History (Spokane Daily Chronicle reprint) · archive · 1912
- 3100 Loudspeaker Technologies that Changed Live-Sound History, Part 1 (David K. Kennedy, 6 September 2026)FOH · reference · 6 September 2026
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