Shure V15V cartridge. Worth investing in?

The Shure was a good cartridge for its time, especially in terms of trackability at low stylus pressure settings. I believe the medium priced moving coil units available today would be audibly better for your jazz material, where cymbals and hall ambience (echoes and reflections) require particularly good high frequency detail retrieval. I am happy with a Sumiko Blue Point in one of my systems; it's a good product in the up-to-$500 range. In the $500-1000 range, I would nominate the Benz-Micro Glider. Good luck.

Go and get yourself a Denon DL-103 and this will be your last cartridge.....

I've owned every generation of Shure V15 cartridge since they first appeared, and still think they are one of the great values in analog. However, the current version of the V15 -- the V15VxMR -- is a substantially better cartridge than the version you still own, and you can buy a new one for around $250-275. Try Garage-a-Records at: www.garage-a-records.com.
I think you'd be much better served with a new V15V than trying to invest $100 to resurrect the older model.

As others have mentioned, there is some good competition in the V15's price range, including the Grado Platinum (mm), the Sumiko Blue Point and Blue Point Special (mc). However, the one thing that the V15VxMR still excels at is tracking -- NOTHING outtracks this cartridge. It's also fuss-free, durable, has user-replaceable stylus, and has excellent sound quality.

Over the years, I have found it interesting that so many high-end reviewers and audiophiles are virtually incapable of giving this fine cartridge its' deserved recognition. Some recent articles, however -- such as Michael Fremer's columns -- have lately given grudging respect to the V15V, acknowleding it as one of the best cartridges available.

Yes, you can outdo this cartridge by spending more than twice as much, but, nothing will touch it for the price of a replacement stylus. It all depends on what you expect from your analog setup. By the way Edle, I have seen references to this Denon cartridge before and you certainly have piqued my interest. Could you please tell us what other cartridges you have had experiences with that leave you so fond of the Denon?

Of course the counterpoint to Jame's point is that if you go with a moving coil, you'd better have a phono stage that can amplify it. If not, you may have to upgrade that too. MCs usually have much lower output.

I'm very pleased with my Clearaudio Virtuoso MM, but it is unfortunately more $ than the V15