The Melophone -- a (baby) grand pretender!

If it's true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then unlicensed knockoffs of the Stylophone are evidence of its popularity and success. A few months ago, I found this colorful, vintage styloclone on eBay.

Rather that dutifully copy the official Stylophone design, the Taiwanese manufacturer of the "Melophone" made some rather clever tweaks. I find the baby grand piano shape of the cabinet both cute and kind of hilarious.  It makes me imagine a full-sized piano with metal keys and a stylus the size of a pool cue!

This model also features a rather prominently mounted combination on/off/volume rotary switch. I find it easier to use than comparable rotary switches on some of the official Stylophones of the same era, but it kind of disrupts the piano motif.

And the sound?  Well, not so good.  The basic tone is fine, but there's no vibrato switch, and a few of the keys are rather out-of-tune.  That could just be due to age, though.

Now I just need to find a tiny candelabra.

The YL-112 mini electron: Styloclone or Stylophony?

I once heard a funny variation of an old idiom: Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery. If that is true, whoever designed and marketed the Japanese-made Origin model YL-112 mini electron organ was a big fan of the official dubreq Stylophone.

The YL-112 cabinet design is very similar to the real McCoy, but slightly wider, with sharper corners. A metal mesh grille covers the speaker area. The metal tip of the stylus is more round than the conical tip of a real Stylophone.

It has a vibrato switch and a rotary off/on/volume control. A side panel holds an output jack for an earphone or external amplifier.

The box art indicates that the instrument has 6 transistors.  I guess this is supposed to be a good thing. One better than 5, anyway.

I can't make a fair analysis of this instrument's sound quality. This particular specimen in the Stylophone Museum does produce sound, but there must be some worn or defective electronic components, because the volume is weak and gets progressively worse with lower pitches. Also, the vibrato circuit isn't working.

There were several instruments around the world that featured the Stylophone's stylus and metal keyboard while dubreq's original patents were still in force. Most or all of them are certainly unauthorized copies, but some have design elements or packaging so similar to dubreq products that they could pass for licensed variants. You can see a few photos of Stylophone clones on another blog called Squeezytunes. Click on these links: 1, 2.  Also, check out these pages on Miniorgan.com: 1, 2, 3, 4.