@mijostyn Dude, you do know I was just messin' with you, right?
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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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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@mijostyn : Electrically this's the FR response loaded at 22k:
the problem with 22khz that no matters if you load it with 800pf the HF down at around 10khz.
Loading it at 47k and 250pf improves but not what we could want:
Now if you loaded at 75khz + 100pf then improves a lot:
I usually load the MM/MI types at 100k and if you or other gentlemans read the long MM thread ( where I advised touse that kind of load) several audiophiles said are/were satisfied and better than 47k.
The cartridge DC resistance is a number I read somewhere ,maybe can be a little higher and if it's that way the better response.
R.
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I'm with Raul. I usually load both MMs and high output MIs at 100K ohms. I keep capacitance to a minimum (about 100pF or certainly no more than 200pF) in both cases. However, I know that some do prefer a resistive load lower than the standard 47K ohms. To be honest, I haven't looked into the rationale for that. |
@mijostyn : The Stanton of those times shows 1,800 ohm Audio Technica around 2,500 ohms, latest Stanton 981 around 900 ohms, Shure 2,500 or 3,000 seems ok.
Now those links showed electrically FR response numbers and what you like is a different matters. It’s almost absolutely weird/rare that you bougth the resistors with out check " numbers " that usually you are in love with numbers. @lewm you are just rigth and those hat goes lower than 47k ( at least 47k. ) have problems with ears and/or system or both , somewhere down there. I tested 150+ cartridges ( including 3-4 Shure's and at least one with Jico SAS stylus. ) and all one like 100k with low capacitance, no matters what and for me is good that some ONE as you confirm it by first hand experiences.
R. |
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