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Hear my Cartridges....🎶

Many Forums have a 'Show your Turntables' Thread or 'Show your Cartridges' Thread but that's just 'eye-candy'.... These days, it's possible to see and HEAR your turntables/arms and cartridges via YouTube videos.
Peter Breuninger does it on his AV Showrooms Site and Michael Fremer does it with high-res digital files made from his analogue front ends.
Now Fremer claims that the 'sound' on his high-res digital files captures the complex, ephemeral nuances and differences that he hears directly from the analogue equipment in his room.
That may well be....when he plays it through the rest of his high-end setup 😎
But when I play his files through my humble iMac speakers or even worse.....my iPad speakers.....they sound no more convincing than the YouTube videos produced by Breuninger.
Of course YouTube videos struggle to capture 'soundstage' (side to side and front to back) and obviously can't reproduce the effects of the lowest octaves out of subwoofers.....but.....they can sometimes give a reasonably accurate IMPRESSION of the overall sound of a system.

With that in mind.....see if any of you can distinguish the differences between some of my vintage (and modern) cartridges.
VICTOR X1
This cartridge is the pinnacle of the Victor MM designs and has a Shibata stylus on a beryllium cantilever. Almost impossible to find these days with its original Victor stylus assembly but if you are lucky enough to do so.....be prepared to pay over US$1000.....🤪
VICTOR 4MD-X1
This cartridge is down the ladder from the X1 but still has a Shibata stylus (don't know if the cantilever is beryllium?)
This cartridge was designed for 4-Channel reproduction and so has a wide frequency response 10Hz-60KHz.
Easier to find than the X1 but a lot cheaper (I got this one for US$130).
AUDIO TECHNICA AT ML180 OCC
Top of the line MM cartridge from Audio Technica with Microline Stylus on Gold-Plated Boron Tube cantilever.
Expensive if you can find one....think US$1000.

I will be interested if people can hear any differences in these three vintage MM cartridges....
Then I might post some vintage MMs against vintage and MODERN LOMC cartridges.....🤗
128x128halcro
halcro's avatar
halcro OP
2,664 posts
 
The first Shure cartridge I owned, was the little known ML140HE. recommended by a US audio buddy.....
In what was a cheap and unassuming plastic body....Shure had armed the ML140HE with a nude Line-Contact stylus on a THIN WALLED HOLLOW BERYLLIUM CANTILEVER 🤯
My next experience with a Shure, was the ubiquitous V15/III which I actually bought, so I could transplant a JICO SAS STYLUS therein.
This to me, sounded far better than the original V15/III stylus.

Frogman does not like Shure cartridges..... but I doubt he has heard the ML140HE? 🤔

SHURE ML140HE 

SHURE V15/III/SAS 
harold-not-the-barrel
895 posts
 
Frogman and Cleeds, thanks for your input. I´ve known the MC Sigma Genesis 2000 and its reputation for thirty years and it´s a bargain as the prices for used are quite low today. A Colibri is another superb cart to try in my system but in this price range I´ll go for a Soundsmith FC.
A thin walled hollow beryllium cantilever has a very low moving mass, that ML140HE´s is probably 0.20 mg. Is the HE referring to hyper elliptical stylus btw ? Anyway, interesting to hear the statements about ...
frogman
7,457 posts
 
More detailed comments forthcoming, but Princi and I are in complete agreement; mic overload and all.  
halcro's avatar
halcro OP
2,664 posts
 
Is the HE referring to hyper elliptical stylus btw ?
I think you might be right.....
I thought the ML could stand for 'MicroLine'...but the specs call it hyper-elliptical.
Imagine back then....we had the technology to produce, not only solid beryllium but also HOLLOW beryllium cantilevers.
They could also produce hollow boron and titanium cantilevers.
These days, the only HOLLOW they can do is aluminium.
For boron, sapphire, ruby, diamond....solid is the only choice.

BTW....the SAS stylus for the V15/III is on a solid boron cantilever.
harold-not-the-barrel
895 posts
 
Yes indeed in the glorious 80´s we had hollow beryllium cantilevers with very low moving mass. The finest of SHURE was ULTRA 500´s 0.165 mg and ULTRA 400´s 0.195 mg which is an improved version of the ML140HE.

Found this:
An estimated list of Shure cartridge rankings, best first, rankings based on tip moving mass and trackability, magnetic core type and stylus shape:
  1. Ultra 500 (V15 Type V-MR modified for lower moving tip mass of 0.165mg)
  2. V15 Type V-MR, Ultra VST-V (as per Type V, MR tip)
  3. V15 Type V (HE tip, beryllium tube cantilever, tip mass 0.17mg)
  4. V15 Type V-G (as per Type V, conical tip)
  5. V15VxMR (similar trackability, beryllium tube cantilever and MR tip shape to V15 Type V-MR, but non-laminated core, so eddy currents in the core will mean a less-flat high frequency response, tip mass 0.17mg)
  6. Ultra 400 (ML140HE body with MR tip, laminated core, beryllium tube cantilever, tip mass 0.19mg)
  7. ML140HE (laminated core, beryllium tube cantilever, HE tip)
  8. VST-III, V15 Pro/S, Realistic V15-RS (same body as V15VxMR, HE tip, beryllium tube stylus)
  9. V15 Type IV-MR (the MR tip was a later upgrade for the Type IV stylus)
  10. V15 Type IV (laminated core, telescopic aluminium tube cantilever with beryllium stub, HE tip, tip mass 0.29mg)
  11. V15 Type IV-G (as per Type IV except with conical tip)
  12. Ultra 300 (same body as Ultra 400, ML140HE and ML120HE, telescopic aluminium tube cantilever, MR tip, tip mass 0.3mg)
  13. ML120HE (laminated core, telescopic aluminium tube cantilever, HE tip)
  14. V15 Type III-MR (as per Type III, but later upgraded with MR tip stylus)
  15. V15 Type III-HE (as per Type III, but later upgraded with HE tip stylus)
  16. V15 Type III (laminated core, aluminium tube cantilever with beryllium stub, elliptical tip, tip mass 0.33mg)
  17. V15 Type III-G (as per Type III, but with conical stylus)
All of the above cartridges, except for the Type III models, have Shure’s Dynamic Stabiliser brush, which damps tonearm/cartridge resonance, short circuits record static electricity to ground, and removes dust from ahead of the stylus.

All in all, it´s just such a pity that Shure discontinued their better models.
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