Elektro-Mess-Technik

Elektro-Mess-Technik (EMT) is a manufacturer of phonograph turntables and professional audio equipment, including a well-regarded line of artificial reverberation devices beginning with the EMT 140 plate reverb. The company was founded by Wilhelm Franz.

Wilhelm Franz, born in Bremen in 1913, founded his first firm, ‘Elektromesstechnik Wilhelm Franz K.G.’ in Berlin, in 1938. Two years later Wilhelm’s brother, Walter, joined the company. The Allied bombing air raids over Berlin intensified in 1943 and Franz moved to Schuttertal, then, after 1945, to Lahr, in the Schwarzwald region of south-western Germany. The logo of an 'arrowhead' was chosen as a symbol of the passage of an electric signal in an electronic circuitry.

After the war Franz, in co-operation with the ‘Rundfunktechnisches Institut’, (‘Broadcasting Technique Institute’) directed by Dr. Ing. Walter Kuhl, designed the ‘927 Large Studio turntable'. Introduced in 1951, the 927 is an impressive machine, outstanding in size (67 cm wide, 52 cm deep and 21.5 cm high) and performance. Its enormous main platter (44 cm) was necessary to play 16” acetate records and it was driven by a very large electric motor through a sturdy idler-wheel system. Additionally it could play the 33 ¹⁄₃ rpm 12” Long-Playing records and 7” 45 rpm (RCA-standard) discs. The Danish firm Ortofon provided the tonearm for the 927 (‘RF-297’) and the first magnetic pickup officially installed by EMT on their turntables. A stroboscope engraved around the acrylic outer platter allowed the fine tuning of the 927’s speed and its quick-start arrangement allowed a remarkably short starting time of less than 500 milliseconds at 33rpm, an astounding feat at the time. The 927 was built in different versions, the ‘927A’, with an optical indicator of the position of the stylus on the grooves, the ‘927D’, a special reference version built with special care and very close tolerances for laboratory use, while the ‘927F’ could accommodate a second tonearm behind the platter, and ‘927st’ stereo version.

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