ResonantLive Sound Archive

Equipment file · Telephone-line stadium announcing system

Musolaphone stadium system

Automatic Electric · 1913

Evidence status · documented

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

In 1913 the Chicago Musolaphone Company trialled a stadium system at Comiskey Park, with horn reproducers hung over both grandstand tiers, run from a central transmitter booth to announce line-ups and play phonograph music. A home 'telephone newspaper' version was short-lived.

Introduced
1913
Category
Telephone-line stadium announcing system
Intended use
Ballpark announcements and music, and a proposed home news-and-music service
Production
Chicago Musolaphone Company, using Automatic Enunciator reproducers

Why it mattered

  1. 01

    An early large distributed stadium system with a central announcer booth, the basic layout of later stadium PA.

  2. 02

    It tested wired entertainment distribution just before radio made it obsolete.

Engineering record

Stadium layout
Horn reproducers over both grandstand tiers, one amplifier per five reproducers, fed from a single transmitter booth[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

Comiskey Park, Chicago, 1913: line-ups, battery changes and pre-game phonograph music[1]

Manuals & original documents

No authoritative manual or original document has been located for this profile.

Sources

  1. 1Loud-Speaking Telephone Enunciators in Baseball Grand Stand (1913)Early Radio History (Electrical World reprint) · archive · 1913
  2. 2The Loud Voice (1914)Early Radio History (Popular Electricity reprint) · archive · 1914

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