ResonantLive Sound Archive

Equipment file · Telephone-line loudspeaker

Automatic Enunciator

Automatic Electric · 1910

Evidence status · documented

Identity and core specifications are documented; some historical fields remain unavailable.

Automatic Electric of Chicago announced the Automatic Enunciator in 1910, a loudspeaker for wired telephone-line distribution, and a separate company was formed to sell it. It was used for announcements in hotels, stores, factories and railway stations before outdoor installations followed.

Introduced
1910
Category
Telephone-line loudspeaker
Intended use
Announcements in hotels, stores, factories, stations and outdoor venues
Production
Automatic Enunciator Company / Automatic Electric Company, Chicago

Equipment photographs · 1

1918 advertisement for the Automatic Enunciator public address system

1 / 1 · The Big Voice

The Big Voice·Automatic Electric Company·Public domain

Why it mattered

  1. 01

    One of the first commercial loudspeakers built to send one voice to many listeners over wires.

  2. 02

    Its makers explicitly pitched it for addressing huge crowds, a direct forerunner of sound reinforcement and of the [[musolaphone|Musolaphone]] stadium system.

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

  1. 1Replaces Bell Boy (1910)Early Radio History (contemporary press reprint) · archive · 1910
  2. 2Enunciator Will Oust Hotel Page (1912)Early Radio History (Spokane Daily Chronicle reprint) · archive · 1912

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