Siemens 800 with mag sound

[John Burgess]

Always loved Siemens projectors and have had a few 16mm versions, beautifully engineered and kind on film , no auto thread which I hate! When the late John Cunningham (ex Breakspear Films) offered me his 800 st8 double band machine I was round to his house like a shot, we struck a deal and I was now the proud owner. I never used the double band side but enjoyed watching my classic silents on large spools. Lurking in my spares bin was a Heurtier sound head from their St 8 sound machine, I offered it up to the Siemens and did a few measurements drilled a couple of holes made some brackets and mounted it on the front. The sound head is fed into the input of the Siemens amp which is valve and also has a tone control . A retaining clip to keep the film engaged on the underside of the bottom sprocket allows the film to be pulled through the sound head. It is fitted with a 2 blade shutter, I converted the spaceman bulb for a 12v 100watt Zenophot, and John machined out the Siemens lens barrel and fitted a Euprolux f1.1 . It works so well and gives a lovely bright picture with excellent sound reproduction . The sound head just unclips to return the machine for silent films. The beauty of this projector is its 2200ft film capacity, how forward thinking of the design team at Siemens back in the day.
John

[John Armer]

Wow, what a machine John. There can't have been too many of them back in the day which will likely mean they are rare as hen's teeth today.

[John Burgess]

John, they were popular in Europe as stripe sound wasnt around then and a double band machine with sprocketed tape ensured perfect sync. I know of a few here in the UK , but they were an expensive piece of kit and that maybe put people off. It’s a pity they didn’t carry on and develop a mag stripe machine, I am sure it would have been a lovely projector.
John

[Steve Klare]

This is impressive work, John!

-less "I bought a projector" than "I BUILT a projector"!

[Douglas Meltzer]

John,

Excellent job on adding the Heurtier sound head. I have used the 16mm double band version which was a huge beast but very dependable. I had no idea there was a Standard 8mm Siemens.

[Simon Wyss]

I find that foolish. With a Siemens & Halske 800 you want to take advantage of the SEPMAG process that affords better sound quality from perforated magnetic film plus all the possibilities with editing it.

The smartest thing one could do with that projector is to try to double the diameter of the drive sprocket for the mag stock in order to double linear speed. Such a larger sprocket would best have teeth spaced for the 16-mm. format. One could then use 16-mm. magnetic film which is still produced, eventually slit in half. That way one would have 16-mm. sound quality and the possibility of having an optical sound track made from the magnetic record (SEPOPT). Perfection would finally be an additional optical reading facility for such magnetically insensitive tracks.