"Vince C. Negro" <vnegro@ibm.net> wrote:

> I agree with  Larry Smith regarding the sound chamber between the
> bottom the music box and the surface on which it rests, but I think
> this holds only if the movement is mounted on the bottom of the box
> (as is the case for the cylinder boxes Larry spoke to).  With the
> vertical mounting, it seems to me that the sound chamber is now
> between the panel on which the movement is mounted and the back panel
> of the box; am I on the right track here?

I believe so.  It looks to me like large vertical music boxes have much
the same requirements for soundboards that upright pianos have, and
they seem to be built similarly - certainly that is the case for my
large upright Kalliope.  In that box, the mechanism is mounted directly
to a sound board that looks like one that might be fitted to a small
piano.  I might have speculated that the box itself forms a resonating
chamber, ex- cept I have observed very little difference in sound no
matter whether it is open or closed at the time, which seems to argue
that the soundboard alone determines the control.  Of course, these
types of movements are much larger, and the area of the soundboards
are much greater, I daresay the acoustical require- ments are very
different from the smaller, horizontal cylinder boxes.  I've heard
quite loud cylinder boxes, but they are, in my limited experience,
generally quieter than large upright disk boxes - they, like many
reproducing/player pianos, were designed to entertain people in noisy
environments, like bars or salons, which is surely where my Kalliope
started life.  As the music box scales up, it begins to resemble its
spiritual brethren in mechanical music...

>                              On page 92 of the book `Musical Boxes
> and Other Musical Marvels' by Rulli, writer James Spriggs presents a
> thoughtful article on this subject and mentions ..... soundboard for
> larger disc boxes...'.  Is there more specific information on this
> subject?

Not that I know of, but in view of the foregoing, I'd check out
the plethora of material on piano soundboard construction.

regards,
Larry Smith