Our Sawdust Sirens are old style acoustic amplifiers for your new phone's speaker. Simply put your phone in and have a listen.

San Francisco character and baseball announcer John “Foghorn” Murphy had a bellowing voice. As a newspaper seller in the 1890’s, he would ride through the streets during baseball season to give details on upcoming games. A decade or so later, he moved inside the stadium to work as pre- and mid-game announcer, shouting out starting lineups and player details through a megaphone from the middle of the field. Around that time, Peter Jensen and Edwin Pridham were working on a telephone receiver and were having issues selling their technology to telephone companies. Peter thought of Foghorn – even his big voice struggled to communicate with an entire stadium. By attaching a horn to their moving-coil receiver Peter surmised (possibly with input from local blacksmith Ray (see Siren #145)) that they could amplify the human voice. That led to the birth of the first public address system and ironically to the demise of Foghorn Murphy and other similarly large-voiced announcers.

This Magnavox radio speaker horn is 22” tall with a 14” bell and is paired with a base from an oak tree. (The whole piece is 24.75” tall x 14” wide x 10” deep). The base is finished with Betty’s Board Butter (beeswax & mineral oil). You may want to re-oil the base occasionally. Each Siren is signed on the bottom of the base. If your phone has stereo options you may want to play around with mono and stereo settings to see which you prefer. Please let us know if you have a plus sized phone.