Phonoland

A friend of mine has a Magnavox changer and needs a new needle. She isn't able to find any serial numbers, but I know its the gray changer with the slimmer tonearm, introduced in the mid-60s, after the bulker machine with the black arm and gold elliptical headpiece. Does anybody know what the serial or model number from this changer is?

Sounds like the 700 series Micromatic. You can still get the needle from Radio Shack online if the cartridge is the thin, white EV 275, Astatic 195D, Magnavox 560345 or Magnavox 560350. If it is one of the above, it should have a small metal tail with a screw hole in the tail used for mounting to the tone arm. If so, the Radio Shack model number is 560344-560345. It's on page 2 after doing a full site search for STYLUS or you can find it by doing a MAGNAVOX STYLUS search. The cost is about 6 bucks. If you don't care about playing 78s, you can also use the single-tipped, winged Electro-Voice 2647 in the EV 275. Radio Shack has that one, too - about 5 bucks.

Could you look to see what needle I need?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18315316@N ... 287086339/

Thanks
Stan

If it's a lighter gray color, it could be from the 620 series changers. TomW is right about all the cartridges/needles options, I posted all those in the Archives months ago so people could go there. I do have a changer that looks exactly like the 620 but it's a dark charcoal color and the corners are no longer rounded.

The 715 and 716 changers had the long slender, but rounded arms. One of mine even has a cueing lever and a removable record spindle to play single records using a short spindle. Wish they would have done that on some of the older ones.

The thickness-sensing spindle in the units before 1964 would have been a big job to calibrate each time you changed spindles.