Tonetruth Sound Chamber - those side grills on mid 1930's Scott cabinets

[David C. Poland]

Some cabinets have the side grills, some don't. A recent thread here commented on Merle Jones'  Chinese modern style Roslyn cabinet having an additional side speaker grill on one side only.  

The Scott News Feb 1934 pg 6 (Vol 7 No 1) introduced the Roslyn featuring a side grill as the optional location for the speaker to enable playing the radio with the cabinet doors closed. The same issue also introduces the Waverly console, but the Waverly did not feature a side speaker grill. A year ago or so, Estes Auction sold an AW-15 in the early Roslyn with one side speaker grill.

Later, the October 1934 (Vol 7, No 8) Scott News introduced the Westminster cabinet with the usual front speaker grill and , in addition, sporting grills on both left and right side and adopting the "TONETRUTH SOUND CHAMBER" name. Indeed, Scott News April 1935 Vol 8 No 2, page 8 states all Scott cabinets are now equipped with the Tonetruth sound chamber. My Roslyn with AW-23 has both side grills. So, later AW-15's as well as AW-23's are commonly found in cabinets with side grills. An AW-23 in a cabinet without side grills likely suggests  an earlier cabinet updated with the newer Scott model. Scott continued to offer the AW-23 for many months after the Philharmonic introduction and so some 7 knob AW-23's may be in the larger Philharmonic size cabinets (about 18 inched deep)

Evidently, the TONETRUTH grills feature was dropped in 1937  with the redesign  of the cabinet line to accommodate the larger (wider, taller and deeper) Philharmonic receiver chassis. Warrington, Laureate Grande, Roslyn and Tasman were examples enlarged and omitting the Tonetruth side grills. The new Chippendale console had no side grills. Although some of the Scott materials show Philharmonics in cabinets with side grills, my photos gallery shows several Philharmonics in the same cabinets but none have side grills. I'd be curious if any readers have a  Philharmonic in a Philharmonic cabinet with the side grills. (A Philharmonic crammed into an earlier, smaller 14 inch deep AW-23 sized Warrington like I saw at Estes Auction a couple years ago doesn't count)

When Scott brought out smaller second tier of new cabinets for the scaled down later 1930's models (Sixteen, Super XII, Phantom), the Tonetruth grills were omitted (Wilshire, Leamington, Braemer) , with the exception of the Accousticraft cabinet.