19th
February
2007
Why do ice cream vans sound the way they do?
“Nothing sounds quite like an ice cream van, and this post on EM411 left me wondering how they work. This is what I found: ‘Early models consisted of a hand tuned Swiss musical movement (like a music box) fitted with a magnetic pick up and the amplifiers used radio-type valves. In 1958 reliable transistors came on to the market and efficient amplifiers were built to work directly of the vehicle’s battery…’”