The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

OF, I agree (btw, I'm Sean, Shane is in Austarilia!)

I think Larry (as well as you and I) are all saying the same thing. Although I may not be as furious over this as he is, I've dumped a ton of money into new styli for four DD reproducers, in fact, more money than all THREE of my machines and one Edisonic reproducer cost me altogether.

Perhaps Larry will get an answer from Expert. Perhaps I should have been more insistent with the vendors I bought them from. My hope was maybe this particular batch from this vendor was a bad one, so I'd get one from another hoping they had a good batch and so on. It didn't work. Not one single one of them was interested in what I had to say, in fact, two of them (both well respected folks in our hobby that I wouldn't publicly denounce over this) blamed Expert, but made no attempts to do right by me or offer to contact the supplier. So, I wound up with four DD styli that I will not use. It's ironic that the one I'm using now is a nice original I took from an NOS reproducer I found tucked away in a machine at my parents' house.

Larry, you misread what I wrote before, I think. Two styli I got were bad right off. Two others were OK at first and began to leave lines later on.

Sean

Hi Sean:

Sorry about the name mix-up.

Has the exact problem with the styli ever been addressed? Cleaved incorrectly? Bubbles or other defects in the diamond. Improperly ground or polished? Point too sharp?

The reason I ask is that I remember that the late Bob Waltrip, with whom I corresponded some 20 years ago, once wrote to me about in detail concerning his experiments with Diamond Disc reproducers.

Bob claimed that the then available new production diamond styli were either cleaved incorrectly, or that they were polished to a sharp point. The main problem, he said, was the point. What Bob told me he did, before installing the mounted stylus onto the reproducer, was to draw it a few times across an abrasive surface, such as a sheet of very fine jewelers sandpaper (don't know what it's called.) He said that this blunted the point slightly so it it would more easily receive it's final polishing by the diamond disc's groove. Bob also recommended playing about 10-20 medium to worn condition records before trying it out on a good condition disc.

Thought I'd mention this for what it's worth.

OF

I tired for a bit to sand lightly a tip that was displaying the lines thinking as you mentioned that it might round it a bit. It didn't make any difference. I was told that you couldn't effectually sand a diamond point, but I would think Waltrip knew what he was talking about. I probably didn't have the correct kind of paper. I will have to inquire at a jewelry store and see what they say?

Walt,

Many of these don't seem to display the problem till long after the bills have been paid.

I agree that the vendor should be the first person to pursue.. I believe I PM'd you about this situation as well. My vendor has known my dissatisfaction for quite some time, at least a year I would think. After continued stalling and with other reports of issues from collectors I decided to contact Expert personally. While I agree that the vendor is partly responsible, when all else fails the issue still was created by Expert and they also have some part to play in this saga. If it were not for them we would not be in this situation.

Having said that I must reiterate your point that previous issues may be indeed what some of us have ended up with and any new purchase of stylus from Expert may be absolutely fine. I certainly hope that is now the situation. But it still leaves those of us who may have received those that failed out quite an investment, not to mention a bad taste from it all. So hopefully Expert will have a helpful remedy of some sort. One way or the other they are the place the buck stops as they would no doubt be replacing the stylus that were defective to the dealers if they were returned.

I also don't think that all "Business Men" was meant to paint a broad brush of all restorers, as we all know that their are fine dealers out there. I think it is more like saying that if you purchase a bad item the "Retailer" should stand behind it. It doesn't say that a given retailer is dishonest, it just says that one would expect a retailer to do as you say. Take care of the customer. Unfortunately some very slick phonograph retailers have hyped their products beyond reality. The key word there is "some".

Hi Walt:

Many thanks for pointing that out. Yes, I should have said some businessmen. (I've never dealt with a phonograph repair shop or parts business run by a woman, but that doesn't mean they're not out there.)

And your point is a good one. In truth, over the past 20 or so years, I've only dealt with five or six (what I would consider to be) unbusinesslike individuals involved in the phonograph hobby, say out of a total of twenty.

OF

You're entirely correct, Walt.

The biggest problem here is that this was well over two years ago and I wasn't nearly as persistent as I probably should have been, I try not to be one to cause anyone trouble. To be honest, I became so disgusted that I gave up on my two Edisons altogether until I picked up a C-200 this Summer that had a super original stylus in it which kick started my interest in my other two machines again. After all this time has passed, it's basically moot and really at this point I have no recourse other than to invest in three more diamonds, something I really don't want to do until I know for certain there are quality products available again. I have the means to play my DDs electrically here and while it's a perfectly nice way to listen, I still want to be able to play them on original equipment feeling secure that my $500 dealer stock Eva Taylor electric isn't going to wind up being destroyed, ya know?

Gone are the days when you could buy replacement styli for $22 each like I can remember doing in 1987 that came from Expert and they were great. I wish I had bought more of them then and hung onto them, but alas....

For the time being, I'll have to be satisfied with what I can use, but even so, I'm leery of laying anything decent with the two I'd call "decent enough". Hopefully soon, we'll get some news that there really are good replacement styli available again and I'll replace mine when I can.

Anyway, I find this topic interesting only because I know I'm not the only one that this has happened to. I still believe Expert could have admitted to the fault and agreed to allow vendors to return the faulty styli, which I was told at the time, they refused to do.


Sean

I heard from Expert today. His contention is that no stylus operating under that amount of downward pressure is going to not leave a line in the run off. He assured me that the distribution of the weight on the point in the grooves was not doing any undo wear to the playing grooves. We couldn't really agree that the older needles or even the new ones often left no visible sign of operation in the run off?

I was of course out of my league in scientific discussion so I could mainly listen and try to agree or make polite points from my view.

He didn't feel that more than a few collectors had observed and issue such as this. I felt it was a bit more than that.

He was willing to take a look at one or both of the currently questionable points I have and do some through testing on them to see if they can determine any kind of issue with them. He also wondered if he might try to make a slight change in the shape of the blunt point to round it slightly so that it would ride the run off with less tendency to show a problem.

All an all he was very polite and interesting and obviously quite a knowledgeable person.