Victor No.2 Reproducer Misalignment & Record Wear

[John3313]

Wow, that is really cool! And it is such a good example of R&D pursuing a customer 'need' (i.e. constant needle changing) while 'breaking' another facet of performance that was ok, probably without realizing it. Of course I wonder for users back in the day, what percentage of them really DID change the standard needle every time? For the average record purchase, how many times would it be played before it was moved into the closet?

[Marco Gilardetti]

Indeed the heavy traces of wear that we find on many "common" records, especially on the outer grooves, clearly speak about how needles were overused and misused. As justification, we might argue that the claim that the needle shall be changed at every play, might sound as a consumerist marketing strategy in order to increase sales and force people to discard objects that could still do their job. Instead, for once, they were honest directions.

As a side note, each time that I purchase a portable and open it in order to rehaul the motor, I invariably find a lot of scattered needles that slipped inside the cabinet somehow. In all cases, these "vintage" needles show terrible traces of overuse and wear, and attemps of retipping in some cases. Quite often, I've also found one or two pins, which of course weren't there because some lady loved to do her sewing next to the gramophone...

[John3313]

Indeed the heavy traces of wear that we find on many "common" records, especially on the outer grooves, clearly speak about how needles were overused and misused ... "vintage" needles show terrible traces of overuse and wear, and attemps of retipping in some cases ...

Next time I shall look at those refuse needles as well -- never thought of that.

It would be interesting to find a vintage magazine or newspaper print ad for Phonograph Needles to see their marketing approach to this Quality vs Cost trade off.

[Marco Gilardetti]

I've seen many such ads over the years, and the wording is invariably the same: brand X needles give a superlative clarity of tone, they're absolutely noiseless and are very gentle over the records causing no wear. All these claims can be considered pretty much false. However, the directions to have the needle replaced at every record were always very clear and were reported even inside the needle tins, usually.

What was perhaps less clear were the reasons why they had to be replaced so frequently. I figure many people thought this was just consumeristic strategy in order to increase sales, and ignored about the wear they could do by overusing, or rotating, or grossly retipping their needles.

What I would instead like to figure out is if needle tins were perceived as an expensive consumable, or if they were cheap and affordable by everyone.

[John3313]

Those are good points. Certainly exaggerated claim making was standard operating procedure at that time. When I got the VV-405 for my daughter I found on the Victor-Victrola web site a listing for that machine stating that its price was $250 dollars in 1923 (at least $2500 in today's money.) I've seen record prices right on record labels of a $1-2 so it would be interesting to know the Needle pricing. A couple hundred dollars seems very significant for a middle-class family at that time so I wonder if that cast a 'use with care' halo over the whole post-purchase consumer experience. Something like household inkjet printers today: buy expensive OEM ink to assure the quality vs. cheap refill ink to save $. Were needles only sold at the music store or at mercantile shops and department stores as well? Or perhaps mail-order subscriptions to keep a supply coming? So much to know and so little time to find out :/