@
thehorn,
I bought a Soundsmith Zephyr MK/III Hand Made High Output Cartridge from Greg Leurquin of Hi-Fi Heaven and tried it out for about 3 weeks with 2 different turntables and I found it couldn’t even come close to the quality of sound, imaging, dynamics and soundstage that my Shure V15VxMR cartridge with a Japanese JICO VN5xMR HIGH GRADE neo SAS stylus made.
I ended up selling the Soundsmith Zephyr MK/III Hand Made High Output Cartridge at cost.
Here is an informative link with detailed reviews about all Shure V15 phono cartridges:
https://hometheaterreview.com/shure-v15-phono-cartridge-reviewed/ Now on the Shure V15VxMR cartridge, I
stumbled across a Canadian seller who wanted $202 Canadian for the cartridge which came to $152 US
and took a chance hoping nothing was wrong with it and have been jamming ever since. So I really got lucky on that cartridge.
I could have bought an original Shure VN5xMR
stylus but the JICO reviews were so good I opted for the JICO VN5xMR HIGH GRADE neo SAS stylus - brand new.
And everytime I did an upgrade, (tube preamp with telefunken tubes/all Duelund interconnects) the sound coming from my turntable got better and better. The Shure V15VxMR cartridge took whatever I through at it with breathtaking ease.