Plastic Phonograph Needles

[JerryVan]

Who will be the first to try them???

https://www.ebay.com/itm/126482219555?i ... R4zPyofvYw

[OrthoFan]

"Special gramophone needles.

50 pieces in a bag (zipper) = approx. 2.5 hours playing time.

The price (USD $36.-) includes the postage and packaging from Switzerland to the USA and worldwide."
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They'd be interesting to try, but 2.5 hours of playing time for 36 bucks?! A standard pack of 100 steel needles, playing one side of one 10" record, gives you more than five hours of playing time. More for 12 inch records.

I've often wondered why some type of plastic wasn't used. I know that ivory was tried, along with similar materials.

The only issue I can think of is that the plastic tip would be ground away during playback and micro bits might be embedded in the groove. Along this line, I'm wondering how much the plastic tip would heat up due to friction.

OrthoFan

[audiophile102]

Bamboo fibre needles sound great on my 8-12 and they are organic. The last thing we need is more plastic in our environment.

[JerryVan]

I find it kind of funny that even in 2024, some folks are still trying to invent a better phonograph needle.

[Raphael]

I went to J. Alexander’s, a local chain restaurant for a quick lunch the other day. A cheeseburger, fries and a drink cost me $43 with tip. After that, $36 didn’t seem too pricey for something that will be remembered long after that lunch. So I bought a set and will give them a try, and will skip lunch today and be up about $7 in the process.

Raphael

[JerryVan]

I went to J. Alexander’s, a local chain restaurant for a quick lunch the other day. A cheeseburger, fries and a drink cost me $43 with tip. After that, $36 didn’t seem too pricey for something that will be remembered long after that lunch. So I bought a set and will give them a try, and will skip lunch today and be up about $7 in the process.

Raphael

Anxious to read of your experience with them!

BTW, I enjoyed speaking with you at the last Stanton auction

[Raphael]

Yes, we had some nice chats. It's always better to know the face behind the posts, here and on other forums.

Raphael

[Raphael]

I received the needles and briefly tested them on a Victor VI. Unfortunately, they do not sound good at all, compared to a steel needle used on the same phonograph and same record.

Perhaps I didn't spend enough time reading the three (3!) pages of instructions, which I attach herewith for everyone's enjoyment but if nothing else will enable a sound nap.

Raphael

Needles.pdf

(3.17 MiB) Downloaded 63 times

[JerryVan]

So simple a child could operate it

Yup, that's a lot of instruction for a thing that has no moving parts. Since I brought this topic up, I thought I should at least task myself with reading through the directions, but I could not manage it. I think that by the time I had this figured out, (if even possible), it would have extracted all the joy out of whatever record I had in mind to play.

Raphael, thanks for being our tester and for putting yourself through this trial.

[JeffR1]

I would have thought that any type of plastic would be too soft to transfer the sound waves sufficiently from the record to the reproducer.

Maybe an uncooked piece of spaghetti sharpened just right would work better _ for softer tones, just cook it a little bit.