Greg wrote: > As I said in the earlier response, the tip shape of the tungsten wire is > irrelevant. It conforms to the record groove in a matter of seconds when > first used. You just have to be aware that it is gouging the crap out of > your record while this is happening, so you want to use a junk record during > this shaping period. The harder the material used in the needle, the longer > it will take to shape it to the record groove. So modern harder materials > will probably never be a practical solution. And the problem of tonearm > tracking angle error further adds to the likelihood that a super-hard needle > would always be gouging your records even after it develops its flats.
Actually, I was thinking of two different approaches to the tip material: 1) Something that would wear away quickly and in a way that does minimal wear to the groove. Let the tungsten needle provide the stiffness and transference of the audio energy, and let the tip material have the optimal wear characteristics. (We can think of non-metals, and metalloids such as silicon and germanium.) 2) Something that would adapt to the groove in a non-wear sense, such as a slightly elastic plastic. How would a teflon tip do? In reality, one can't avoid wear, but the "elastic tip" is certainly intriguing. Teflon and similar fluorocarbons can have low friction and elasticity. I think we should not accept the need to "break in a needle on a junk record" as a given -- let's see if we can think outside the box and avoid having to do this... Jon Noring
