So WHERE do you go to buy a Shure V15 Cartridge ?

You can get a Shure V15VxMR from either Jerry Raskin's Needle Doctor, or from Garage-a-Records (which often has the lower prices). Here are the Web links:

Needle Doctor: www.needledoctor.com/
Garage-a-Records: www.garage-a-records.com

Raskin's Needle Doctor usually has a large ad each month in Stereophile, which lists many of the cartridges he sells.

Not sure if J&R Music World here in NYC still carries them or discounts them as much as they used to in the old days (used to be about half off, I think), they're worth a try.

Further to my last post, they do carry the current version of the V15 cartridge, and their price is too low to advertize, so you can e-mail them for a quote. Search under "jandr", you'll find them. Good luck, it's always been among the best MM cartridges.

Have you considered other cartridges? Perhaps you might do well with a high output MC, something like the Denon 103 that some here have reported to be pretty darn good for under $300. Given what you have had prior experiences with, something like this might be an "ear-opener". Don't know how it might work on your table, but you might want to ask around.

If you are set on the V15, you're in pretty good shape, though.

Belts can be found at Projector-Recorder Belt Company in Whitewater, Wisconsin. They are the actual manufacturer of alot of OEM belts and you don't have to pay for 5 middle-man mark-ups.

Regards
Jim

Went out to J&R guys, and the price there is $229.00 -- the cheapest I've been able to find so far. My current pre-amp only supports MM so I'm staying put. Since we're talking analog, I have an old Apt-Holman preamp I'm trying to resurrect, especially the phono preamp. Is there a spot everybody considers the best to work on your gear ?