Bristol Audiophone

The Bristol Audiophone iHorn is made from a rare Bristol Audiophone radio horn loudspeaker made by the Bristol Company in Waterbury, Connecticut in 1922.  This model is the Audiophone Senior.  It was a high end radio horn when first made, selling for $40.00, which adjusted for inflation is $580.48 (or 1351.2% cumulative inflations rate).  These radio horns are rare and highly sought after for their sleek innovative design and wonderful tonal quality.

The Bristol Manufacturing Company was established in 1889 in Naugatuck, Connecticut. Bristol pioneered the manufacture of recording products, including the circular chart recorder still used throughout industry today. In 1892, the company moved to Waterbury, Connecticut, where it remained for 95 years. Throughout the years, Bristol produced a wide variety of product lines, including radio equipment.  By 1915, the company was manufacturing the largest and most complete line of industrial instruments in the world, including instruments to measure and record temperature, electricity, pressure, motion, time, flow, and humidity.   In 1915, the founder William Henry Bristol invented the “Bristolphone” to simultaneously record voices and other sounds with motion in moving pictures. He founded the William H. Bristol Talking Picture Corporation to develop “synchronized talking motion pictures,” and produced one of the first full-length motion pictures with sound. The Bristolphone was used in nearly one hundred movie houses in the U.S. He also developed and manufactured loud speakers, power amplifiers, radios and phonograph recorders. His “Audiophone,” which was used at Yankee Stadium and Grand Central Station in New York, revolutionized public address systems.

The Bristol Audiophone iHorn is well preserved and yet another example of the scope and breadth of American ingenuity and diversity.