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Defective Seeburg Red Head Cartridge Needles
I recently rebuilt both the amp and selection receiver on a Seeburg
Model JL. The Jukebox had the usual very low volume problem. The Red Head PC cartridge had original nail head straight needles with the original Seeburg logo on them, vintage but old and in need of replacement. I ordered the newer style "L" shaped needles 4726-D7 made by Phanstiehl a Swiss company, currently they are the only available needle option for the Seeburg Red Head cartridge. I purchased needles from a reputable US Distributor at a cost of $40 I did a complete rebuild on the amp, installed new caps, new tubes and yes crisp new "L" shaped needles. I could hardly wait to play that first record, set volume at the half way point, made my selection, volume seemed a lot better but still sounding somewhat on the low side I cranked her up, and up, and then up all the way...WTF! volume seemed to be only about half of what it should be, improved over the original scenario but lacking to say the least. I must have screwed something up when soldering in those new caps, so back to the bench with the amp, checked and rechecked all the caps, checked every single resistor, had all tubes checked, removed some resistors out of the circuit to make sure they were within tolerance, all good, all caps correct...so what's left...weak transformer maybe? None of the above. It turns out that there are a batch of needles being sold that are simply defective, problem seems to be with the reproduction of the original Astatic mold or the needle material itself. I'm posting this feedback with hopes of saving somebody else from going through the same madness. I placed the old original needles into my cartridge and BAM! Volume, Bass like out of the factory. Just to be sure, tried my Red Head with the new needles in my friends HFR100 and it cut the volume on that Juke in half, definitely a problem with the needles. I managed to find a pair of NOS Astatic SE-100-1D which are awesome, problem solved. I'm amazed at all the excuses for the defective needle product, like the volume should be okay for home use, well yeah I get that excuse but who really has any 50's Seeburgs out on location, LMFAO Bottomline, do not purchase, wait for the problem to be resolved, maybe this post will speed up that process. |
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