Audio technica needle swap

Quadchuck said:

Sometime back I got a AT-14s on Ebay for a good price, it had a worn stylus so I put it away.
I have an AT-15s and several needles including one I also got on Ebay that is a low cost Shibata( or so claimed).

One very strange thing about that Ebay needle is that it plays the rear in the front and visa versi, the Audio technicas
play channels correctly but other than the channel switch it sounds almost as good as the A.T.'s

I really wanted to use the AT-14 but needles are not interchangeable due to a slight difference in shell design.

So I decided to loosen the screw in the needle shell and it released the needle assembly(14n).
I released the 15n Ebay assembly and compared the two.
.
It appears the stylus assemblys are either identical or so close as to not matter.

I put the better stylus in the 14n shell and it works very good.

I also got sometime back one of those JVC new old stock units someone was selling very cheaply.
It works very good.
There seems to be a few around for about 200 bucks now but they work as good or better than other
Cd-4 units I've had.
In a pinch you can swap stylus assemblys of At14 and 15 needles

You need: jewelers screwdriver, magnifying glass/glasses, good light, oh and good eyes is also a benefit.

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par4ken said:

Just thinking that if the magnets of the replacement stylus assembly had their poles reversed (N & S) it would likely cause the output signal from the cartridge to be phase reversed. I can't think of any other explanation. In stereo usage the polarity swap would be unnoticed (unless you are one of the few who can distinguish absolute phase).

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Quadchuck said:

That's an interesting idea, don't think I can invert those magnets..too small.

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