100 SOFT Tone Needles ~ Victor Victrola & Talking Machine & Wind-Up Phonographs

Description

100 - Soft Tone Needles
for All Antique Phonograph that use Steel Victrola Needles
Loud, Medium and Soft Tone Available
Need Larger Quantities? - Need Less?
(See My Other eBay Listings)
Premium Quality - Manufactured in The USA
Which Needle(s) Should you Buy?
Loud Tone Needles
- Best suited for most listening environments. They have the largest diameter and tend to be the most accurate in terms of reproducing the original fidelity of a recording.
Medium Tone Needles
- Provide pleasant sound but with slightly reduced volume making them ideal for use in a confined area. Their physical diameter is smaller than the Loud Tone needles but larger than the Soft Tone needles.
Soft Tone Needles
- Especially useful if you need even lower volume in order to keep peace in your home or apartment. They have the smallest diameter.
All of the needles that I am selling are manufactured to the same exacting specifications that The Victor Talking Machine Company developed as a working standard nearly 100 years ago. Many other companies followed the same practices back in the day. My needles are appropriate for use with most thumbscrew type reproducers like the Victor Exhibition, No.2, No.4, Concert, and Orthophonic, as well as hundreds of other manufacturers such as Columbia, Silvertone, Sonora, Brunswick, Zonophone, and so on. If your reproducer has a thumbscrew that holds the needle in place, these are probably what you need. My needles are suitable for playing 78 RPM records of the same era. If you are not certain that these will fit your machine, please feel free to ask questions.
Steel Needle Design and General Usage Guidelines:
Even if you don't buy these needles I encourage you to study the information, educate yourself, and understand how to take better care of your records. A steel needle, whether nickel plated or not, regardless of the claims made by sellers to the contrary, should be used one time and then discarded. I will explain why this was and always has been necessary in the following paragraphs. The text is not elaborate and is easy to understand.
Steel phonograph needles actually start out with rounded tips. Yes, they are round at the tip. Compared to human skin they may feel quite sharp to the touch because of their small radius, but they are rounded. As the record plays the needle tip is worn away by the groove it and it becomes somewhat chisel shaped on its edges. This process actually helps the needle "fit" the groove to improve fidelity. But, as it continues to wear, it develops a sort of shoulder near the tip. By the end of just one play this shoulder is sufficiently worn such that it actually approaches the top of the groove wall. Continued use of that same worn needle beyond one play will cause this shoulder to further widen, cut deeper, and ultimately plow into the sides and top of the groove wall literally scraping away sound. See that black dust you wipe off of the tip of your needle at the end of playing your record? That *was* Enrico Caruso's voice. Wear, call it normal, call it abnormal, is a fact of life and it cannot be avoided altogether: the very physics in view show the reasons. This is a call to the intelligent among us to take reasonable steps and do what is responsible to preserve antique recorded sound while at the same time making use of the records. If you objectively consider this information you will realize that it is not a mere personal opinion, but is, in fact, a genuine presentation of simple physics, that when carefully followed, will help you conserve the records you own and keep them safe for the next generation of collectors. The notion of discarding a needle after one play is a fact of life and not a marketing scheme as some have suggested: it is simply part of the overall design. It does not matter how long someone claims to have been selling their multi-use steel needles or if someone pretends that others boast of the imagined greatness of their products, the fact of the matter is, based on irrefutable scientific evidence, that all steel needles without exception, whether plated or not, should be used once and then discarded.
Few realize this, but the shellac composition of early records (prior to approximately the mid 1930s) contains a mildly abrasive compound that is designed to slowly wear the needle. Yes, you read that correctly. Early records must bear the mass of heavy acoustic reproducers (110 to 150 grams or more of tracking mass). This mass cannot be substantially reduced because in order to generate acceptable levels of sound strong mechanical force is necessary. Reread this paragraph and make sure you understand it.
Fact: Either the needle takes the greatest beating or the record does.
This is critically important to remember.
Manufacturers long ago decided that replacing needles was much less expensive than replacing records, and, we think you will agree. Always remember that the abrasive shellac compound is designed to gently wear away the needle tip. That is the normal expected result. A record groove is about .006" wide in most early laterally recorded records. A record groove, while it appears to the naked eye as a smooth spiral, is actually a very wavy line. The side to side (lateral) variations, often referred to as groove modulation, are what cause the needle to move and ultimately vibrate the diaphragm to produce sound.
The modern nickel plating that is typically found on steel needles is applied using a thermoelectric nickel deposition process. This allows a thin layer (literally several molecules) of nickel to be deposited using a heated thermal bath of nickel electrolyte. The nickel is not applied to add mechanical strength to the needle so that it is able to resist wear. The nickel plate is not thick enough for such stress. Rather, it is applied to resist oxidation (i.e. prevent or delay the formation of rust) while the needles are stored. In the early days needles were often not plated and this is why you see so many heavily rusty needles inhabiting the crevices of your machines and even in otherwise unused needle packages. Problems with early nickel plating processes (and even worse, chrome, by the late 1920's) caused the plating to be deposited in very thick scale like layers which had a propensity to fall off during play, lodge in the groove, and wreak havoc. Nickel, compared to the record surface, is extremely hard and brittle and this is why in modern thermoelectric processes it is controlled and applied more uniformly in molecular layers. In this manner there is far less risk of nickel scales damaging the groove. In a good steel needle like those I am selling the amount of carbon present allows the needle to be very strong and then as the needle wears, it does so with great uniformity.
If you are still reading, you are a person who obviously enjoys and cares about the present and future condition of records, and I ask you to simply and freely equip yourself with the simple 4th grade science just presented so that you can see through the misinformation that plagues the antique phonograph hobby. Reject all claims of "multi-play" and "high grade" nickel plating that promote more than one use. Some claim that their particular brand of needles can be used as much as 7 to 10 times. That is irresponsible advice and now you understand why. Yet another instructs you to continue to use the same needle until the sound isn't clear anymore! That advice runs away from logic because if your gauge for changing a needle is waiting until *after* you hear degradation of sound quality, then you've already inflicted irreparable and totally unnecessary damage to your record. Still other folks will try to sell sapphire and other precious stone or metal tipped needles that were intended only for early electric phonographs of the 1930's with magnetic or crystal cartridges. Be careful what you buy and think before you do.
If you have questions, please ask. Don't take chances with your records. Ask for help.