Flip Needle

J

jawbox

New Member
Inherited an ancient Philips PH150C turntable. The needle is interesting. Can be flipped with the following codes on each side. Can anyone elaborate what this means and how this needle should be used?

ST 16D LP

LP S ST 16

Photos attached.

Oz
 

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It's a ceramic cartridge. They often came with flip styli like this. In this case the LP stands for LPs (as opposed to 78s), ST=Stereo, S=Sapphire, D=Diamond. They used to make styli from sapphires, too. I know they weren't as durable as diamond, but I can't remember why they would put both on a stylus. There must have been a reason that sapphire was preferred or necessary.
 
hepple said:
I always thought it was Diamond for 33's and Sapphires for 45's and 78's, I could be wrong though. :-)
Click to expand...

Normally, back then, they used a diamond for the 33/45 microgroove side and sapphire for the 78 wide groove side.

However, as Howard said, there were some that had a microgroove stylus on both sides, one diamond and one sapphire.

And I also do not remember or I never knew why they did this. :D

Doug
 
Sapphire stylus cost a bit less than diamond and have fairly short play hours by comparison. The cost difference was enough for them to be the default styli in many new cartridges. The 3 mil 78 styli were almost always sapphire.
 
Thanks much. Am I risking damaging my records using such an old stylus? Sounds pretty fine for its age. Can hear the odd crackle and pop.

Oz

:scratch2:
 
If it were me, I'd replace it with a new stylus simply because you don't know how many hours are on it.
A worn stylus can really wreck your records.
 
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