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Shure V15VxMR to be discontinued

I saw on needledoctor.com that the V15VxMR was being discontinued - here's a notation from Shure:

"The V15VxMR may be discontinued in early 2005. If it is, the reason
is simple: the worldwide demand for phono cartridges declines every
year. The demand is now so small that specialized suppliers to
Shure no longer want to produce the parts for the V15VxMR. We are
searching for new suppliers but the processes required are very
arcane, thus making it difficult to find new suppliers. Once a final
decision has been made, we will post it on our web site. As of
today, we can only say: maybe."

"If the V15xMR is discontinued, we expect to have replacement styli
for the V15VxMR until late 2006, but that date may change if buying
patterns do not follow past trends. If you want to purchase a
replacement stylus now, seal it in an air-tight jar to keep ozone
away from the stylus bushing."

"The M97xE sells in greater number than the V15VxMR and our suppliers
currently seem happy to continue selling parts. But that too could
change in the future as the phono cartridge market continues to
shrink."

What a shame - the end of an era....
slate1
paul_frumkin
130 posts
 
And get Harry Pearson to say it sounds great with Musical Fidelity equipment.
scottht
398 posts
 
Check out www.thetwistergroup.com
$209.00 How can you beat that price?
scottht
398 posts
 
Well, I received the new Shure today. Nice looking and appears to be well built. I am currently using a Grado Reference Sonata.
I was hoping to see a difference. Nope. The Grado wins hands down in this competition. I suppose I could keep the Shure as a spare betwwen changes. Well, I guess it was to good to be true. I expected alot out of the Sure. From all of the positive reviews and all.
Maybe as a two hundred dollar cartridge it isn't too bad. I was just expecting more out of it.
Well, now back to the loving task of putting the Grado back on.
BTW. The supplied bolts were not long enough. What's up with that?
audiomax
166 posts
 
A good cartridge should consistently sound good with any equipment not just with Musical Fidelity. A cartridge however could be a poor match with turntable/tonearm to yield poor sound.
artar1
159 posts
 

My Shure V15VxMR will arrive tomorrow; I couldn't pass up the $212 price at Beach Audio. It will be a good cartridge to start with, and it will also be a good backup cartridge once I buy a moving coil design sometime in the future.

I noticed that the Shure V15VxMR has a mass of 6.6 grams and a compliance of 25cm according to the Shure web site at

(http://www.shure.com/phono/v15vxmr.html

and

http://shure.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/shure.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=fo48L1qh&p_lva=&p_faqid=807&p_created=985265291&p_sp=cF9ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3dfY250PTgwJnBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9VjE1VnhNUiZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=

This web site recommends tonearms with an effective mass between 11 and 12 grams.

However, when I use the Van den Hul equation at

http://www.vandenhul.com/artpap/phono_faq.htm#a2

to calculate the ideal tonearm effective mass for the Shure V15VxMR so that I can obtain the optimal tonearm/cartridge resonance frequency of 10Hz, which is recommended by Van den Hul, I obtain a tonearm effective mass of approximately 3.532 grams! This difference in effective mass is considerable, and I don't know of any tonearms that are this light.

Any comments or observations? Does resonance frequency calculations even apply to the Shure V15VxMR?
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