Phonoland

I figured I'd start a post about the pickering 345 cartridge needles. I'm looking for the best set I can find. The last pair I got I'm not happy with. My juke has some distortion in the vocal range. I have replaced the tone arm wire, adjusted the mech and had the amp rebuilt and still It seems to be lacking in sound quality. The speakers and individual quality of the records could be an issue. Replacing the needles with a good quality set would eliminate this as a potential issue problem.

Anyone know a source for an NOS set of diamond tipped originals? Or had good luck with a supplier for new ones?

would a NOS sapphire Pickering S34501 set work in a Seeburg SS160 345 cart?

Rambling man,
Do you have a red tone arm on that SS-160, or a green/blue one ?
Ron Rich

I just replaced the red one with the blue green one.

If you got that screw that holds the arm in, tight---and it's correctly balanced/pressure set at 1.5-2.5 gm, it should work fine, unless that NOS set is the blue "1 mil", MONO needles, designed to be used only with pre-1958 mono records ! Ron Rich

Ron Rich wrote:If you got that screw that holds the arm in, tight---and it's correctly balanced/pressure set at 1.5-2.5 gm, it should work fine, unless that NOS set is the blue "1 mil", MONO needles, designed to be used only with pre-1958 mono records ! Ron Rich

Ron, how would one put the mono "spikes" into a 345 cart. this I gotta see

Rob

Ramblinman, you are correct that record condition, speakers and styli can cause this problem

Does the amp fade up at each record and do quiet records get brought up to approx equal level as the loud ones. This is imp[important since the original diodes that control the gain in the AGC circuit nearly always are bad and unable to control the level properly. the amp is designed with more gain then needed so that there is enough to bring up a quiet record. If the AGC fails there will be distortion.

Some other tests:

First eliminate the speakers as culprit by connecting and external known-good speaker to the one or the other side (L or R) of the amp's terminals Temporarily disconnect the internal speakers.

See if you have any good vinyl records and wash them before testing.

Finally, poor quality copy styli can cause a sort of distortion that sounds exactly like an overdriven amp with the bulk of the distortion in the vocal range (around 500Hz). I had a number of these in 1986-7.

If you have a turntable with regular magnetic cart, try plugging that into the juke amp.

Rob-NYC

Hi Rob,
If you really wanna know--see eBay item #Item: 261643492870
Ron Rich