@mijostyn : of course you have to try about and it's interesting to read this review:
https://www.vinylengine.com/library/shure/v15.shtml
V-MR test report ( 1984 ).
Btw, are you hearing a kind of harshness in your cartridge today set up?
R.
The Shure V15 V with a Jico SAS/B stylus VS The Soundsmith Hyperion MR and Lyra Atlas SL
On a sentimental lark I purchased two Shure V15 V bodies and one SAS/B stylus. I was always a realistic about the Shure's potential. Was comparing it to $10k+ cartridges fair? Absolutely. The Shure was considered to be one of the best cartridges of the day. Why not compare it to a few of the best we have today?
The Shure has always been considered to be unfailingly neutral. Famous recording engineers have said it sounded most like their master tapes. I do not have an original stylus for the Shure and I can not say that the Jico performs as well.
My initial evaluation was quite positive. It worked wonderfully well in the Shroder CB. With a light mounting plate and small counterbalance weight a resonance point of 8 hz was easily achieved. There was nothing blatantly wrong with the sound. There was no mistracking at 1.2 grams. You can see pictures of all these styluses here https://imgur.com/gallery/stylus-photomicrographs-51n5VF9
After listening to a bunch of favorite evaluation records my impression was that the Shure sounded on the thin side, lacking in the utmost dynamic impact with just a touch of harshness. I listened to the Shure only for four weeks as my MC phono stage had taken a trip back to the factory. I was using the MM phono stage in the DEQX Pre 8, designed by Dynavector. I have used it with a step up transformer and know it performs well. I got my MC stage back last week and cycled through my other cartridges then back to the Shure. The Soundsmith and Lyra are much more alike than different. I could easily not be able to tell which one was playing. The Lyra is the slightest touch darker. The Shure is a great value....for $480 in today's money, but it can not hold a candle to the other cartridges. They are more dynamic, smoother and quieter. They are more like my high resolution digital files. Whether or not they are $10,000 better is a personal issue. Did the DEQX's phono stage contribute to this lopsided result? Only to a small degree if any. I do have two Shure bodies and they both sound exactly the same. The Shure may have done better with a stock stylus. I do not think the age of the bodies contributes to this result at all.
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@mijostyn Dude, you do know I was just messin' with you, right?
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Disagree. I ran Shure V15vmr and V15vxmr at 1.15g which was the optimum in both an Eminent Technology ET2 and Dynavector 501. That is with the stabiliser brush removed. Both of these arms had eddy current damping in the horizontal plane. More important was capacitive loading - the recommended loading being 250-300pf. Under 250 bright, over 300 lowers the hf response. Can't see how resistive loading will have any impact on a MM unless your preamp has some sort of resonance at 47k/250pf that you needed to obviate. Unfortunately the Shure V15's sounded horrible in many other arms I tried, including Naim Aro, various SME's, Alphason and a few others I can't remember.
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