a bit OT: Will a 78 rpm record damage a normal stylus?

In a word - No. It isn't just the speed difference that's the problem; the size of the groove is completely different. If it plays at all the quality will be abysmal and it may damage your stylus.

Another Dave

I should wash it thoroughly but gently. Then play it on the 45. It might be distorted though because the angle of the groove sides will be wrong.

Bill

For some version of 'work'...

If you don't mind the risk to your stylus, you would probably get something out of it. your 'LP' stylus will be sized for the 'microgroove' of a 33rpm record (hence the phrase, when the new Long-Playing technology came along). So the stylus will be swamped in the groove of the old 78. If you just have a cheap ceramic cartridge(*) then I'd probably give it a go regardless.

The other thing you will have to bear in mind is that the frequency equalisation that was applied to 78s was not standardised. This later became the standard 'RIAA' equalisation that your record player electronics will implement, to a greater or lesser degree. There were a whole load of different curves defined before that - there are charts available.

If you can use an audio editing program (Audacity, Adobe Audition...) then you could apply a combination of the LP RIAA curve and a 78 curve and get a better result (highs and lows balanced). It would be an interesting little project.

(*) some of these have a flip-over stylus, one side for LP, one for 78s. If you have a moving magnet cartridge, you might take the risk. If you have a moving coil cartridge, then (a) you will know it, and (b) I wouldn't try any of this.

HTH, Jon N

You might even find that the groove is so deep that the stylus doesn't touch it, held aloft by its mount scraping the top surface.

Don't do it, it will f*ck your stylus right royally. It will be rattling around like a loose thing on international loose-things-rattling-around day.

Context: Former broadcast engineer servicing and repairing 'record players' among other things for a major UK corporation of British broadcasting fame.

Cheers. I did think about buying the ?cheap and cheerful? double needled ceramic cartridge but not sure how it will play with my AV amp.

Tim

(digging some of this out of the memory banks...) The amplification, loading and equalisation needed for a ceramic cartridge are different to those for magnetic ones; I don't think it is worth trying unless your preamp is already capable. Unless you have a *really* good reason to want to hear what is on the '78...

Provided that you have software which is up to the job, yes.

In fact, it is a common practice in professional circles to transcribe from disc at the slowest speed possible and adjust speed later.

But... are you sure you can't find the track on Spotify or Amazon Music? There are fifty three of his tracks available on Spotify and one on an ordinary Amazon Prime sub (with the promise of more for an Unlimited account).

AAMOI, what's the track?

Or rather, what are the tracks?

The ceramic cartridge (eg, as found on the classic Garrard, Collaro or BSR autochanger and fitted with a flip-over mechanism for swapping between vinyl and shellac styluses) doesn't need a pre-amp stage. You can just run the output direct to your soundcard input.

You might loose quite a bit of bass depending on the input impedance. I guess an sound equaliser can make up some of the loss.

If you hold the corner of a plastic banknote in the groove and rotate the record you will hear the music. Yes really. It does work.

Bill

A darning needle gripped between your front teeth worked well, too !

I've played 78s using a microgroove stylus. It didn't do any visible (under a microscope) damage to the stylus.

PA

My Aunt's wind up gramophone worked quite well using a sewing pin attached to a stiff paper cone:-)

Bored childhood!

in general a ceramic cartridge will play into a high impedance (1Mohm +) preamp with no equalisation at all

On a 78 you have more equalization than that to worry about as typically recording techniques are not that good

if you don't mind no bass at all.

You need a high impedance input

If I remember correctly on old `record players` the stylus was flipped over for 78s or 33/45s (I think)

Also archive.org

It depends. If its one of the old type of brittle ones which were meant to be played with steel needles I think accelerated wear, some groove rattle and incorrect eq should be expected. Most sound editors these days seem to have a speed change mode made for this case. I remember that if you have an Ortofon cart then you can buy proper 78rpm stylii for those. The groove deviation may well over run the normal parameters and cause distortion, its very much a suck it and see situation I think. Myself I'd be looking for an old autochanger deck from an old radiogram I think , to play it on, one of those with the turn over needle made of sapphire and a crystal cart.

In later years though when 78s were pressed in Vinyl, most people used electronic playback gear, so you might find the surface noise a lot less if its one of those.

Brian

It will have a high level output, might be best into a line in or the line in on a pc and then fiddle with it from there. If you have a lot of rare 78s might be worth doing this with a relatively cheap deck, like an old garrad sp25, some still running after all these years. Brian