Sonotone Phantom Hearing Aid "A" Battery The Sonotone phantom hearing aid "A" battery was manufactured by Sonotone Corporation of Elmsford, NY. It was used in the Sonotone Model 910 hearing aid of 1949. The phantom battery and cord weighed 0.8 oz. (24 g), whereas the large external Sonotone X800 battery weighed 4 times as much at 3.4 oz. (98 g). |  | Click picture for larger view | | |   | | | |
| A little background. Two piece hearing aids had the batteries external to the hearing aid. Then in 1947, batteries had shrunk in size so they could be put inside the new one-piece hearing aids. However, the vacuum tubes of the day still used a lot of power so the first one-piece hearing aids quickly drained the "A" battery. Sonotone came up with an ingenious way to have the best of both worlds. If you were wearing the hearing aid and moving around, you put the smaller "A" battery inside the hearing aid. (An example of this "A" battery was the Eveready 1015E (the same size as our modern AA batteries). The phantom "A" battery was identical in size so it would fit where the "real" "A" battery normally fit. (There was a small groove in the battery door so the cord could stick out.) However, if you were sitting at your desk for example, you could substitute a "phantom" "A" battery in place of the real "A" battery. Then you plugged in a large external "A" battery such as the Sonotone X800) into the phantom battery and enjoyed much longer battery life before you needed to change the large "A" battery. |  | Click picture for larger view | | | |
| The Sonotone Phantom "A" battery was basically a hollow shell with a wire connected to each terminal. The wire came out the side of the phantom battery. |  | Click picture for larger view | | | |
| The Sonotone Phantom "A" battery showing the positive terminal. |  | Click picture for larger view | | | |
| The Sonotone Phantom "A" battery showing the negative terminal. |  | Click picture for larger view | | | |
| The cord from the Sonotone Phantom "A" battery terminated with a plug that fit the large Sonotone X800 battery. |  | Click picture for larger view | | | |
| The Sonotone Phantom "A" battery plug (right) plugged into the top of the large Sonotone X800 battery (left). |  | Click picture for larger view | | | |
| The "huge" Sonotone X800 battery was many times the volume of the smaller (phantom) "A" battery, thus it could last several times as long. |  | Click picture for larger view | | |
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