[78-L] Getting needled

[Royal Pemberton]

And one reason Taylor's disc sounds bad with a 3 mil stylus could possibly
be due to groove damage at that point in the groove walls due to someone
broadcasting or playing it with a 3 mil stylus (perhaps a dodgy one) long
ago.  Most likely safe to say 2.5 mil as a starting point (no pun intended)
but as with any other vintage disc, use whatever size gives the best balance
of frequency response, signal to noise ratio and lowest distortion.

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 11:14 PM, Michael Biel <mbiel at mbiel.com> wrote:

> All of the titan pressings I've seen are shellac, but you didn't mention
> if this one is.  I am surprised that it didn't sound OK with your 78
> stylus but you didn't tell us what your 78 stylus is.  I do not know
> what might be different in size with a yellow shank needle, but a
> chromium long playing needle is probably a harder chrome steel that will
> play for a longer time (probably 15 minutes) than a regular needle (5
> minutes) because 16-inch ETs run for 15 minutes.  Since your disc is a
> library service disc it probably has separate selections rather than one
> long program, so the longer time needle is not necessarily necessary.
> Is your disc 12 or 16-inches?  Royal is correct that most ETs use a 2.5
> mil stylus, but the old standard that 78 stylus size is 3.0 mils is not
> necessarily true.  2.5 truncated is what a lot of people find most
> usable, and 2.7 is also a popular size, but so is 2.3.  If the groove is
> a true V-shape, an LP needle will also work.  Most 78s had their metal
> negatives polished which removes the bottom of the groove and makes it
> U-shaped at best, but some ETs purposefully had their grooves left
> V-shaped.  Lacquer cuts will be V-shaped because there never was a metal
> negative to be polished.
>
> By the way, just because a disc has instructions to play with a certain
> steel or fibre needle does not mean that modern lightweight styli can't
> be used.  They were telling people of that era what to use with their
> heavy pick-ups, and it is to be assumed that a 21at century collector
> has more sense than to play a valuable record on ancient heavy arms and
> steel needles.  Junkers, ok, but not a valuable or interesting record
> like yours.
>
> Mike biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> From: Royal Pemberton <ampex354 at gmail.com>
>
> > Slightly smaller than a 78 stylus....2.5 mil is approximately what
> > they used with transcriptions. An LP stylus won't harm anything,
> > it just won't sound very good.
>
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 9:52 PM, Taylor Bowie <bowiebks at isomedia.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> I just got a 1934 33 1/3 transcription (inside out) on the "Titan
> Library
> >> Service" label from San Francisco.
> >
> >> The label instructs me in no uncertain terms to "Use Chromium Yellow
> Shank
> >> Long Playing Needles on this record."
> >
> >> I've looked all over the house, garage, glove box in the car, etc. and
> >> I'm fresh out of those things...whatever the hell they are.
> >
> >> Would it be OK to use a modern LP stylus or will I ruin the olde diske?
> I
> >> tried it with the 78 stylus and it sounded crappy although the music is
> >> fantastic (one side is the legendary Williams-Walsh Hotel Mark Hopkins
> >> Orch.).
> >
> >> Any of you techies able to advise me on this?
> >
> >> Many thanks from   Taylor
>
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