To my knowledge, this is one of the earliest Amphion systems. It has a 4-point air motor, one reservoir bellows, and the tracking ears are build into the trackerbar. This system was found in a Troup upright player with a Seaverns piano action. Below are two pages from patents that were filed in 1906 (March and August). The first one is fairly similar with regards to four specific points. One, it has the 4-point air motor and the design of the air motor governor is similar to the governor is the Troup piano. Two, it has one extremely large reservoir with two large exhausters, with the reservoir and exhausters sharing a common wind trunk. Three, it employs a pneumatically operated vacuum cut-out valve. Four, it incorporates what appears to be a "silent" feature (lever 156). Also of interest to this writer is the design/shape of the take-up spool (#74). Notice how the wood on the outside edges of the core, past the roll flanges, is a smaller diameter than the main core. Also notice the gear (#79) mounted to the end of the core on the right.

The second patent (below), which was filed five months after the first one, shows the addition of the pneumatically controlled gate valve (cut-out valve), the single reservoir bellows, a slightly more elaborate air motor governor which also employs pneumatic switching for the Fast Rewind function, and a 'Silent' feature which allows the user to 'fast forward' through portions of the music that they don't want to play. (Why anyone would want to do that is a mystery to me...)

One important feature that's missing in both of the patents is the tracking mechanism. It's hard to know, for certain, when Amphion incorporated an Automatic Roll Tracking System, but it's interesting to note that this system is virtually identical in every respect to one found in the Ampico 'A' Reproducing player mechanism. This leads me to believe that the two companies where associated in some way, shape, or form. Further evidence of an association appears in a treatise about the ArtEcho player mechanism -click here.

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