Does anyone have recommendations on where to buy needles?

[marcapra]

I saw that many of you were trying to put together a big group buy from Mike Child to minumize the shipping fees in 2011. what ever happened to that project? I assume it folded. Did it?

[ImperialGuardsman]

Thy only needles I've ever used have been the ones sold by Walt Sommers (CyberTigger) on Ebay. They seem good to me, unless anyone has noticed that they are lacking compared to other needles. Has anyone done a comparison?

[Frankia]

My own experience with steel needles leads me to recommend the Mike Child or "soundgen" needles also. I've tried two American types in the past as well. All needles I tried seemed to have more or less the same degree of ability to last out a record i.e. not as good as NOS, but quite alright unless the record is particularly loud or worn. However the soundgen needles won out over the other newly manufactured needles on general sound reproduction, in my opinion. I found myself giving up the search for expensive NOS examples after using them for a while, as the reproduction was good and most of my records don't need the bit of extra needle wear that old stock seem to provide.
I should add that I can only speak for the soft and medium tone examples. I don't use Loud tone needles and I find Extra Soft to have an overly thin tone - understandably of course, but that's a subject for a different thread!
Now I use mostly thorn needles except on Victor 78s and a few others, but on the occasions that I use steel, I still go for the soundgen ones.