Page 11 - Microsoft Word - RDcover11_03.doc

The amplifier is again a bit of a
mystery for a French built machine. It
uses American metal envelope octal
(8 pin) valves of the type commonly
used in American war-time defense
equipment.

The output stage uses a pair of 6F6
valves operating in push pull with a
stated output of 2 watts.

Speed change was accomplished by changing a
gear at the rear of the machine – the motor being
a constant speed synchronous type.

This is no light weight machine; the base and mechanism are solid
castings. The whole machine weighs in at almost 25 kgs. Pathè also
produced a Super VOX version, which incorporated a 400 watt lamp and a
more powerful amplifier.

The gate also incorporated a slider to mask off the sound track. When
screening sound films the image is almost square in shape.

In my opinion here lies one of the
biggest mistakes Pathè made in
with their 9.5mm sound system.
They failed to correct for the loss
of the width taken up by the
sound track. When 35mm
converted to sound, a similar
situation occurred. To retain the academy ratio (1.33: 1) the height of the
frame was reduced to retain the correct ratio and not lose ant image area,
the frame was simply made slightly smaller. Not with 9.5mm. Pathè simply
cropped the width of the image and continued for many years with a
virtually square picture, eliminating about 20% of the available image.
There are also examples of 9.5m sound films around in which they failed to
centralize the image – simply chopping off the LH side of the picture.

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