Yesterday I did a rebuild on the reproducer for my VV-300. I’d listened to some records using a fiber needle and some osage orange thorns previously but didn’t want to use anything too strong until I had rebuilt it. Using a thorn I could immediately tell the difference between when it had the old gaskets and the new. I had just found a copy of Rhapsody in Blue that day and it gave me watery eyes listening to it with the new reproducer. I also received a set of steel needles, both soft and loud tone. Having never used the loud tone needles I put one in and threw on one of my older Caruso records. With the loud tone needle doing it’s thing I actually needed to back away from the victrola due to the sound volume hurting my ears. The next project up is trying to rebuild my Cecilian reproducer which might be a bit more of a challenge because I don’t see any gaskets like the one this uses to attach to the tone arm or rebuilding the spring motor for that machine. Both will be fun projects.
I want to give a shout out to Walt Sommers as I purchased the parts from his ebay store and he had them out the door and in my hands in short order.