Seeburg blackhead cartridge

I've found a good working Seeburg blackhead cartridge has great volume and nice sound. I have several non working blackhead cartridges that have been hanging around for some time. On all of them either one or both sides play low. When I give the cartridge a slight push on the record it sounds good.
What I think is happening is the needle is being centered, as the ones that do sound good are centered, and the low volume sides are off center when the cartridge is at rest.
What little information I've found mentions bad rubber and others mention the soldering mount coming unsoldered. I know there is at least one place that rebuilds the blackhead
but was wondering if anyone has done the rebuilding themselves?

Hold onto those carts, crude as they are, after rebuild they have a very simple stylus point which can be adapted from a lot of others still available.

Short of replacing the whole tonearm, this will be the best, and probably only, solution longterm.

BTW: Part of the rebuilding requires repacking some rubber to stiffen the stylus (but not too much) and dampen resonances.

Rob

Thank you Rob. I'll have to look into what type of rubber to use.
West-tech no longer rebuilds these so I took it apart to have a look.

The soldering mount wire is still soldered to the stylus mounts, and it looks
as if the rubber that surrounds the mount has gone bad and most is missing.
One mount is leaning to one side.
I need to find out the best material to use to repack it and how to pack the correct amount.
If anyone knows I'd appreciate any help.

Juker,
If you do not want to DIY, try contacting Ed Crockett, at Vintage Electronics. I think he still will do it-
601 264-4755--M-F, 8am-5pm CST, only--If you contact him, please say "hi" from me--loooong time, no talk !
Ron Rich

Thank you Ron. I'll give him a call

Well I didn't have to send it out after all. Since it was already apart I thought I'd fist give it a try. First you have to
remove the grease that is packed around the mount. I believe it was there to keep the rubber pliable.
The stylus mount has a hole where the mounting wire runs through it, and is soldered in place. I was able to melt the solder
while positioning the stylus mount in the center. I then used very small dots of silicone around the stylus mount where needed. I
did this on both sides. I had ordered a set of .7 mil stereo stylus which is made for 45 RPM and they showed up today.

The sound from the blackhead is extreamly nice. It has more volume than my pickering 345-03D's and redheads. I do have a
similar cartridge that is gold which sounds like the rebuilt blackhead. I prefer the sound of the blackhead over any of my
redheads, and it is right up there with the pickering. Definately more volume than the pickering but I"m still deciding
which has the smoother sound. I had first tried the blackhead with a nice set of stock mono needles (on a mono record) but the .7
mil set is really what seems to have improved the overall sound.

Juker,
Thanks for this post--
Curious--what needles are you using in the 345-03 s/d cartridge ?
Ron Rich

Hi Ron. I'm using the green needles that originally came with them. I had bought two extra sets when they were still available.
Since I'm out of extra green needles, I bought one set of the yellow needles but haven't tried them yet. I've heard they sound
the same but don't last as long.

Hummmmm???,
I tested a known good "blackhead" with ".7mil" needles installed and found it to have just slightly less volume then the 03D ( with green needles).
The "Yellow" needles if genuine Seeburgs, are not made to use there, and , will, in fact, self destruct in about 100 plays, or less. If "aftermarkets", in some cases, just "inserting them into the cartridge", can and will damage the cartridge. I have yet to see an aftermarket that was comparable to the OEM--all have one problem or another--Ron Rich

Ron Rich wrote:The "Yellow" needles if genuine Seeburgs, are not made to use there, and , will, in fact, self destruct in about 100 plays, or less.

Ron, you've me really confused here. I've been using the Pickering yellow styli in my location machines, 8 of which have the retro cart, for up to 21 year now. I've never had a damaged styli. In most places the "A" side is used for a total of 5-6K/total plays.

I have not tried any copy styli since around 1988 or so. Aside from weaker output due to thin cantilever there can be a problem with using them if the shank is fatter than the original. The problem is that they can widen the gap between the pole pieces in the cart and cause the originals to fit too loosely. Several people told me that they would fall out after copy styli had been used.

Gepetto as it sounds, I found that -carefully- applying pressure to the front-center of the cart tightened them up enough to once again use the originals.

Rob

Here are the cartridges I used for the testing. The two 03D's seem to have the same output. I do have another 03D that is NOS but I doubt it has a higher volume output.
Both of the redheads I tried used older production needles, even though one set is a lighter blue. The new production ones have terrible output. You will also notice I added
a repro decal to the blackhead and as you can see it is much more shiney than the originals on the redheads.

After another listening this morning I do prefer the smoothness of the 03D cartridge as the blackhead seems to be just abit treble heavy...but the blackhead is a great cartridge.

Rob: Are the yellow replacement needles in the photo the ones you use? I bought them many years ago.

juker wrote:Rob: Are the yellow replacement needles in the photo the ones you use? I bought them many years ago.

I don't know who/what made the copies I tried back in the 80's. After I got a "distributor account" with Pickering I was buying original yellow styli pairs for $9 and just got rid of the copy needles.

I still have a few unused retro carts with green styli, I don't believe the greens have any higher output.

i was given two black head carts beck in 1986. I did find them slightly better sounding than the redheads using mono spikes. However, like the redhead this cart does show a bit of "pinch effect" - dulling and distortion as the record nears the end and changing styli was a pain.

Rob/NYC