Parlophone Parvus Plays

The soundbox is now decent, but not quite on the acoustic quality level it could be. Some of the parts are made of zamak, like many of these reproducers. The material is ideal for such small parts; easily molded with good accuracies and nice smooth finish. A drawback is that over decades it corrodes from the inside and the whole part swells. It can become as brittle as a dried-out sandcastle.

This soundbox was not quite that bad, but a lug of the pivot-cover did break off in my hands by just touching it. Replacing the gaskets that hold the diaphragm was something I did not dare to attempt. The gaskets are hard, but have glued themselves to the metal in some places. The ring already showed cracks on the outside, so the risk of the ring totally breaking apart is just too high.

Carefully taking it only partially apart and gently cleaning and painting does make it look much better again though. With the cleaning, the pivot should be a bit better also.

With a new gasket on the flange that fits in the tone arm it does look the part again. Even though it's a bit lacking in treble and more 'buzz' risk on loud parts than it should have. It is however freely moving and will not damage records unduly.

Now the brake still needs some seeing to, but otherwise it is getting there. Definitely not as new; it has plenty of scuffs and marks and looks its age, but again the Parvus is a very neat and usable compact portable gramophone.

:)