Shure to leave the phono business

How ironic. Analog is supposedly in the throes of a resurgence, and one of, if not THE, iconic cartridge makers goes down?! Who hasn’t owned a Shure? Out-of-fashion in the high end, but high end doesn’t drive the business, does it?

Back in the 70's a cheap Grado FTE ($15) always beat the Shures for sound quality and sheer musical enjoyment! Gordon Holt and Harry Pearson would agree!

What a shame...

The writing was on the wall when their cartridges were manufactured in Mexico!

Too bad, the Shure M97xE was a fantastic starting cart for those just entering hi-fi analog

Back in the 70's a cheap Grado FTE ($15) always beat the Shures for sound quality and sheer musical enjoyment! Gordon Holt and Harry Pearson would agree!

I used to order that model (well, the GTE+1), 25 at a time.  Although it was a great starter cart, IMHO, it wasn't in the same league as the Shures, but was a very musical, easy to listen to cartridge.

I think Shure’s best ULTRA series of cartridges are out of production for decades, most of the new Shure were made in Mexico (not in the USA) and their lower range of M-44G or M-447 with conical styli and extremely high output are the most popular among pro deejays. Shure Whitelable is an awful sounding cartridge, but also very popular on the pro market. These models are very robust, but the sound is very bad compared to Grado Black (or Grado DJ200i and grado DJ100i - both are the best sounding cartridge for professional market today, but not as popular as Shure).

Anyway, if anyone looking for Shure it must be ULTRA 500 from the 70s/80s if you want the best quality cartridge from this company.

I’m not a fan of SHURE, but i'm pretty sure the Technics will make a new cartridge soon! 

SHURE ULTRA 500 is very hard to beat and ULTRA 400 ain´t much easier

I never got the love for Shure. There were many better sounding carts back in the day.