Magnetic cartridge

A magnetic cartridge, more commonly called a phonograph cartridge or phono cartridge or (colloquially) a pickup, is an electromechanical transducer that is used to play phonograph records on a turntable.

The cartridge contains a removable or permanently mounted stylus, the tip - usually a gemstone, such as diamond or sapphire - which makes physical contact with the record's groove. In popular usage and in disc jockey jargon, the stylus, and sometimes the entire cartridge, is often called the needle. As the stylus tracks the serrated groove, it vibrates a cantilever on which is mounted a permanent magnet which moves between the magnetic fields of sets of electromagnetic coils in the cartridge (or vice versa: the coils are mounted on the cantilever, and the magnets are in the cartridge). The shifting magnetic fields generate an electrical current in the coils. The electrical signal generated by the cartridge can be amplified and then converted into sound by a loudspeaker.