Aww, but somehow the place I'd annually ordered my needles from, I don't think offered me or introduced me to the cartridge idea, nor did I even get the notion, that replacing that, meant a new, and in-stock needle would then be available for--yes, a simple matter of replacing the entire cartridge (that small pice of plastic holding the needle) by just removing a micro-sized screw...
I'd just figured I'd go to quieter manual operation, conforming & complying in a world where needles seem only available for the lowest-priced, cheapest belt-driven stuff and for the highest-priced & hi-prized, in my direct-drive Rolls Royce of phonos, of which I'd always wanted a professional DJ-type of unit, my Audio-Techica:
Got put-off by the broken dust cover, and the console's that it was in not entirely doing the job, keeping off cakes of DIRT, actually, and the noisy automatic, gravity-defying operation subject to reaching a breaking point, sometimes in its future, and did I tell you I was even fussy about the '45' spindle, that I'd gone through a dozen of them, bartering them from other phonos that had real attractive looking ones?
And really, couldn't see myself EVER using those temporary ones that fit in the wide holes of my hundreds of 7" '45's, wondering how I'd grown in a house that had a slew of them, almost one for each record, but abhor the very existence of, preferring my likely $10 one this phono came with, versus it as a separate accessory (with a few dents on her from the iron-like weight of that thing actually falling out of my hands--to the floor, and once on the heat/air register, luckily!)...
So, it found a good owner, or perhaps that very one that recently shown up on consignment at a record store that I frequent, may, if I recognize the serial number, be MINE, then, going for an undisclosed sum...
I saved the patch cables for the Left/Right Audio, still plugged into my daughter's stereo that used to be hr mom's, but she pointedly didn't want a new phono, so I retrieved it & the cabinet now used for additional record storage, I'd long-needed... The cord & antenna had stayed on with...
