Said to have been installed in the Crystal Palace in 1910, this machine was acquired in 1914 from a dealer in Wardour Street. (The Crystal Palace was occupied by the RNVR following the outbreak of war, and many of the contents were dispersed at the time). During the Great war, the Stentorphone was used to accompany silent films: in the 1920s it was used for public entertainment on the promenade at Saltburn, until the owner moved to Studley in the Midlands, where it remained until 1970.
Patented by H.A. Gaydon in 1910, the Stentorphone was one of several compressed air gramophones of the era: the Gramophone Company Auxetophone is the best known. Stentorphones were made by Creed & Co., of Croydon, until the early 1920s. In 1923, Gaydon was advertising the massive alloy tone-arms for sale separately, suggesting that sales of the Stentorphone had more or less ceased.
The gramophone has an air pressure indicator and a regulator, which controls the volume, an early attempt to adjust volume at source rather than by restricting the outlet.