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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. 

128x128mijostyn
richardbrand's avatar
richardbrand
212 posts
 

@dogberry 

"Not really a problem if you obey the instruction manual that says to use (an) amp(s) of 40-100W power and no more. As you may recall, I have replaced all the panels in my 2905s, and while the older panels were short on glue, it was the case that one would fail and start to arc after playing too loudly."

I still have four out of twelve panels in their original condition.  The rest have been reglued (really much more than that as it involves new mylar and new slightly conductive coating, plus proper tensioning).  Panel failures have been revealed by a slight murmuring noise, or popping as a spark flies!  I have also had a high voltage failure in one speaker - the high voltage is on the same circuit board as audio.  In the end, I made up a piggyback board to produce 5.25-kV.

Initially I used a Quad 405-2 100-Watt amp, basically designed for the speaker.  Later I switched to a lower power amp, the Krell KSA-80.  Well, lower power when measured into 8-Ohms, at just 80-Watts RMS.  The Krell is about 9 times larger, but only 4 times heavier, than the Quad, which made 100,000 405-2 amplifiers, on top of 64,000 405 ones.

In my experience, transients tend to be faster on SACD, BluRay audio and 4K disks, for example West Side Story, Spielberg fashion. Any instantaneous input voltage over 56-V triggers the protection, regardless of amplifier power.  The Krell has an impressive slew rate!

richardbrand's avatar
richardbrand
212 posts
 

@bdp24 

A couple of obvious issues apart from those @mijostyn has pointed out.

1.  They have two drivers offset spatially by a considerable horizontal distance, which will give rise to comb interference with frequencies in the crossover region

2.  They have a crossover!

The result according to the video is that they are very hard to position.  Coincident source speakers tend to be very tolerant of room positions, and have much larger listening sweet areas ...

Ag insider logo xs@2x
rauliruegas
13,101 posts
 

Dear @mijostyn  : I really like ELS and especially Sounlabs and Eminet Technologies even that the faster transients where MUSIC comes developed is through horns, yes as everything has trde-offs at both frequency extremes but in its specific frequency range ( depend of manufaturers and models. ) ESL just can't beats it and yes : as always seated at near field position..

Why I don't own horns yet? because its agresivity that many times surpass the liove MUSIC natural agresivity.

Acapella top of the line is a ery good blend of different speaker drivers and really good and expensive ones.

 

R.

tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,939 posts
 

The real wisdom is “ everything has tradeoffs “…. but knowledge and acknowledgment  of that is rarely demonstrated by those preaching a singular one true path answer….. 

imo the 63, of which i’ve sold ( new ) and rebuilt 4 ( several times over… the troubleshooting flow diagram is necessary but not, NOT sufficient, certainly has virtues but is hardly full range for various musical tastes….

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,852 posts
 

 

@richardbrand: While it appears the tweeter of the DIPTYQUE could be a little closer to the midrange/bass driver next to it, the distance between the two is not too bad. The crossover point is 1600Hz, the wavelength of which is 21.45 centimeters. Most loudspeakers are worse than that in terms of the two drivers creating comb filtering issues.

The distance between the ribbon tweeter and p-m driver in the Eminent Technology LFT-8b/c is even greater, AND the crossover point is at the very high frequency of 10kHz, the wavelength of which is only 3.4 centimeters! I’m seriously considering having a new filter built with a more sensible crossover frequency, in the neighborhood of 1500-2000, assuming the tweeter will play that low without distortion. I would love to hear why on Earth Bruce Thigpen chose such a high x/o frequency in the LFT-8.

On the other hand, the p-m driver in the LFT-8b reproduces 180Hz up to 10kHz, with no crossover in that range. And it has a relatively high modulus of impedance of around 8 ohms, the panel itself 11 ohms (the woofer and panel each have their own pair of binding posts, making bi-amping simple enough). Far better than Maggies for use with tube amps.

 

@rauliruegas: In the video below Danny Richie examines the Klipsch Forte 1, and in that examination the reason most horn loudspeakers are extremely colored (imo) becomes obvious. Low coloration is a high priority for me.

 

https://youtu.be/QlVG0Qx5Ds8?si=PamEu5u61kkTlXSl

 

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