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Just got a Brunswick model 207 record player with the Ultona reproducer including the Pathé option. This is my first opportunity to play my Pathé records! I used a regular steel needle and played a Pathé record and it sounded great! A bit more research revealed I should be using a Pathé sapphire ball stylus.

I assume the steel needle will damage the record..?? Will a Pathé sapphire ball stylus fit in the Ultona reproducer? They're kind of expensive and I don't want to get one if they won't fit. Are there other options?

I've got quite a few Pathé's that I'm anxious to play and I don't want to damage the records.

Thanks1 CDB

A steel needle will damage Pathé records. In a recent thread, someone mentioned that fibre needles can be used safely, but I've never tried it myself.
A Pathé stylus will definately fit your ultona, and is probably the best way to go.

CDB - are you sure you didn't play one of the later Pathé lateral discs that were made for playback with a steel needle? I may be wrong here, but I don't think it would sound very good at all if you were playing a vertical disc with a lateral reproducer. (I'm sure others will have better insight on this.)

Here are three out of many examples:

Lateral (Needle Cut): Two different Vertical: Regards,
Martin

Here is a link showing my latest acquisition of Pathé records:

http://pdx78s.cdbpdx.com/Pathé/

I installed a steel needle in the Pathé player part of the Ultona reproducer and played the Bacchanal Rag and it sounded just great, though I guess it was damaging the record as it played.

Gonna get an expensive sapphire ball stylus soon to play the rest of them.

I have lots of Pathé records, most are the vertical cut. The few lateral cut Pathé records in my collection play fine on my regular player.

CDB

Eeek! The link I posted shows an accent over the last 'e' in Pathé and it shouldn't be there. Don't know how to prevent that, but if you delete the last 'e' and add one without accent, the web page will appear.

CDB

Aside from acquiring the sapphire stylus, you must make sure that the reproducer rotates properly. It should rotate in two different ways: once to rotate the barrel so that the sapphire stylus points down. Then the disc holding the diaphragm and needle bar should rotate so that the sapphire stylus points straight out towards the front of the machine, not to the left.
I recently had this problem with my Brunswick and discussed it in the following post. I suggest you read it. And Good Luck.
http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... =2&t=11285

CDBPDX wrote:Eeek! The link I posted shows an accent over the last 'e' in Pathé and it shouldn't be there. Don't know how to prevent that, but if you delete the last 'e' and add one without accent, the web page will appear.

CDB

The mark over the e is correct. This site automatically puts it there as an auto-correct.

Clay

CDBPDX wrote:Eeek! The link I posted shows an accent over the last 'e' in Pathé and it shouldn't be there. Don't know how to prevent that, but if you delete the last 'e' and add one without accent, the web page will appear.

CDB

The mark over the e is correct. This site automatically puts it there as an auto-correct.

Clay

The mark over the e is correct. This site automatically puts it there as an auto-correct.

It might be correct, but my computer won't find the site unless it's not there.

Nice cache of Pathé discs. Hopefully the "steeled" disc didn't get too damaged. I'd be interested to hear how it goes.

Regards,

Martin

Here's a link to a scan of the instruction manual for the Ultona reproducer/tonearm:

http://www.nipperhead.com/old/brult.htm

For each of the different record types, you must not only set the reproducer correctly, there are also different settings for the counterweight and tone arm length.

mark