Ditto Greg's last paragraph. I've played fine-grooved verticals (Crescent, Operaphone, Lyric, etc) on my DD phono and the stylus shredded every single one of 'em, even though the groove-per-inch was similar enough to (probably) play through. Never play any record on the wrong machine. Even playing them on the right ones often results in immediately discernable wear. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Bogantz" <gbogantz1 at charter.net> <snip> > Ignoring the very real issue of pulling the reproducer across the > record, the question of using an Edison DD reproducer on other types of > records then becomes > one of whether the stylus fits the groove shape properly. Most other > vertical cut records had a substantially different groove shape from that > of the DD. Pathe grooves were much wider and the use of the smaller DD > stylus will tear them up rapidly. Other vertical records had basically a > V-shaped fairly deep groove much the same as that used in lateral cuts. > They were designed to be played with steel needles which would quickly > wear themselves into the shape of the groove and thereby reduce the > pressure on the groove walls and keep record wear to a minimum, just as > with lateral records. Again, use of a DD diamond stylus in one of these V > grooves will rapidly wear the record. Likewise, use of a stylus shape > different from the Edison when playing DDs is not recommended at the high > tracking forces required by acoustic reproducers. Too small a stylus will > tear up the DD and too large a stylus tip will not fit into the groove > which will result in groove skipping and much echo. However, the use of > modern pickups with very light tracking force poses no problem for playing > DDs. With tracking forces of about 4 grams or less, even with a > considerably undersized stylus, there is so little pressure on the hard > condensite record material that the material will not yield and no record > wear should result. > > Greg Bogantz