Shure V15VxMR to be discontinued

Sean...Believe me, sean, it can be done. Analog implementation of the necessary algorithms was not possible, but digital servos can be absolutely phenominal.

You want "fluid damping"? No problem...just a few lines of code. Oh and what would you like the viscosity of the fluid to be. You can make it anything you want, even far beyond the range of any real fluid. Would you like the viscosity to vary with frequency? No problem. In the real world this is called a "non-Newtonian" fluid, and the only one I am familiar with is tomato catsup. (Viscosity goes down with rate of flow, or as Ogden Nash said...

You shake and shake and shake the bottle.
None will come,
But then a lot'l.

:-)

Recently, Shure has added the following bits to their V15VxMR page regarding the discontinuation of their cartridge -

[[
We regretfully announce discontinuation of our legendary V15VxMR audiophile phonograph cartridge due to scarcity of exotic materials essential in the manufacturing of the VN5xMR stylus. These materials are increasingly difficult and costly to obtain, and substitutions of those materials would compromise the performance standards expected of the V15VxMR.

In keeping with the tradition of the Shure phono line, we attempt to provide replacement styli for at least five years after a cartridge model is discontinued. This V15VxMR cartridge must be discontinued immediately so that remaining VN5xMR styli can be placed into our replacement parts inventory.

We strive to continue offering innovative audio products that provide outstanding performance and value, and apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.
]]
-- http://www.shure.com/phono/v15vxmr.html, Sun Nov 28 21:10:11 EST 2004

-eric (who recently just bought one of these)

Hi you guys chatted up quite a storm, now its my turn :o)

I am 40 and have got 25 years extensive listening with the Shure V15 type 3 and type 5. I always watch for alternatives and this evening I spent 4 hrs surfing the web for non-Shure cartridges.

Overall, I consider the V-15 type III or type V to be the best solution. In two words: RECORD WEAR. I see all these audiophile cartridges that sport primitive tip-shapes tracking at 1.5 - 2.0 grams. Hey back in 1978 I was learning that even an elliptical at 1.5 grams would cause record wear after a few dozen plays, you could pick up on it immediately, it was guaranteed to happen esp. on inner grooves.

So maybe you are right and the beryllium tube flexes and causes a little distortion. Well, your audiophile cartridge, after costing you $1400, is going to chew the grooves up with the high force and the primitive tip shape. Bet that will sound real nice. Vinyl involves compromise. I'd rather have a V15-5 cartridge that the critics bash all day long, but the fantastic little bastard tracks at 1.0 grams (hell set it at 0.7 its not a problem) and I don't have any record wear whatsoever, I can play my records forever and really enjoy them extensively, and my stylii last twice as long so I lose much less on new needles thanks to my 1 gram Shure cartridge, so neener-neener-neener. :o|

BUT WAIT there's more. There's DUST. We all have dust in our record grooves. I am interested in setting up a laminar-flow HEPA clean-air filter. I also would like to use filtered-compressed, de-ionized air on a hose to clean records. However, as a mortal human being I did not get there yet and there is always some dust around. There can also be small semi-adhesive particles on the record that are stuck there and can be knocked loose. Those come from human skin, and so on, even on the cleanest pressings. I've had plenty brand new records they have particles on them that I have to knock-loose under the microscope with a sharp sewing needle. BACK TO THE SHURE, the long contact ratio and the steep narrow cut of the stylus, well, it deflects dirt out of the groove. But meanwhile those elliptical stylii, they are too roundy and its like running
over the dog, it goes right under. So your fancy $1400 audiphile cartridge with elliptical stylii? it is packing the dirt contaminants into your grooves, unless you setup with HEPA laminar flow and compressed air cleaning, that is.

Shure made a mean move when they discontinue something like that. The engineering was tops on the Type 5. This is purely a matter of bad marketing and short-term greed, the same thing that kills all other fine products (MFSL, silver-Pioneer, Heathkit, HP calculators, 2 of our 5 space shuttles, the Concorde, etc). Somebody wants to trade-up their Lear Jet, and they figured out the fastest way to get there was to trash a factory floor, lay some people off, and take some b.s. tax writeoff. No I never liked the type 5 brush. For that reason, my all-time favorite is the type 3. I see as of today, market conditions are $350 for a new-in-carton type III and $220 for a new-in-carton type 5. That's saying something. Clearly Shure Bros. lazy greedy marketeers and MBA's never paid any attention to their customers or they would have a version with and without. Everybody likes the tall-narrow cut on some of the Ortofons, Shure could just make a version more like that and no brush. Also the old Shure technical pages wail and moan about the arm having too much resonance. Hey I had an ultra-heavy Pioneer turntable arm on a V-15 type III back in 1979 and yeah if there was a warp it was clearly seen that it the arm was oscillating up & down a bit. So what, I never heard a thing from that effect. I always thought it was 'cute'. Meanwhile I REALLY NEED the clear access under the cartridge, for example, when I use a bottle of stylus cleaner and am trying to clean the stylus.

LOL Shure Bros and the USA Hillary government carrying on about Beryllium dust. Imagine the microscopic quantities from a .0005" tube wall, whatever machining might be done. What, they can't put in some suction ? Its hysterical. The real reason is they want us to eat junk food, watch junk movies, listen to junk music (CD's) and if we gotta have some vinyl, get a 'DJ scratch' cartridge and some old rap records and generally be good little consumers without an ounce of brains in our heads. We can resist this trend by introducing as many people as we know to vinyl, ideally the educated types who can sort out up-from-down. Really it was the blue-collar guys who wrecked vinyl, smearing peanut butter on their records and using rusty needles, until they demanded CD's which weren't even intended to be high-fidelity in the first-place, merely meet the neeeds of Joe six-pack. Proper and quality playing of vinyl (a LOW RECORD WEAR cartridge) is a beautiful thing and the proof is in the pudding and people of intelligence need to see & hear it.

I am thinking towards having a high-end "loaner" system available that with close friends I let them take it over in their fancy house for a few weeks (Martin Logan electrostatics, Hafler 9505, etc) and generally spread the word on awesome vinyl. Shure's vanishingly low-record-wear and tendency to do well with dirt & dust makes their cartridge pretty much mandatory for spreading the vinyl gospel. In all the years I have used "HE" and "MR" stylii (the hyperelliptical and micro-ridge by Shure) I have NEVER heard ANY detectable record wear, including records I have played 150 times. With other stuff I pick up on the record wear immediately. Shure is a practical cartridge for practical and discerning people. Shame to CEO's, executives, and marketeers who constantly terminate good products in order to build crap for Wal-Mart instead. I think the real problem is they are jealous of engineers because engineers build wonderful things, but all they can do is stash away another bag of money and kill another fine product. Deep down such moves are lashings out of inferior, greedier people against the rest of us who have appreciation of beauty. Oh yeah, same thing with destroying the Hubble as V15 MR, its all connected. http://www.savethehubble.org

Thank you very much for letting me share this info. - Norm (Seattle area)

Norm: Clean your records one time very thoroughly, put them in high grade bags and then brush them off with each play. As far as cartridges and TT's go, align the cartridge and arm, set the proper tracking weight and be done with it. Maybe you'll have to adjust VTA once in a while, but good arms do this "on the fly", so no big deal.

For those "lower quality, higher error rate" designs that use pivoted arms, you'll have to do all of the above AND try and find a suitable anti-skate adjustment. Given that this will change over the curvature of the disc, good luck.

Other than that, did you ever think that all of the mistracking / stylus drag / dirt in the grooves is probably what has caused the various distortions that you make mention of and others complain about? Then again, what else can one expect out of a design that can only be "theoretically correct" a maximum of two times across an entire disc? Believe me, those problems are NOT from using a "reasonable" tracking force on a properly aligned arm / cartridge on a clean disc. Sean
>

Hi Sean,

you 'jumped a groove' on me because I was just thinking about which cartridge is best for practical vinyl enthusiasts, and what to do when Shure quits selling the beryllium cantilever cartridges. You are describing some things about angular tonearms vs. linear tracking tonearms.

Well a guy could buy that Pioneer linear tracker but that will cost you, plus the maintenance. It also has to 'be your style'. I always liked the classic "S" arm just for everyday usage that is. The cartridge is where I want it. I never got into using a knob to electronically place the arm, but obviously some folks are into that. Yes the error on a pivoted tonearm is about 2 degrees I heard, and its correct only at 2 points as you said. It really depends on the shape of the needle. That 2 degree error has to be absorbed by the stylus tip. I've got every respect for linear motion tonearms. Maybe somebody should make a longer "S" arm (make it 2 feet long). I think antiskate adjustments work OK, they assert the outward force on the cartridge so that its not being dragged radially inwards by the pivoted arm configuration.

Back to cartridges, regardless of whether you use a pivoted tonearm or a linear tonearm, you need a cartridge that tracks lightly and accelerates quickly, so that forces between the diamond and the vinyl are low. You also don't ever want to lose contact with the vinyl, for that is fatal.

I have a really high respect for the old 'trackability' concept of Shure Bros., and haven't seen anything do a better job at avoiding record wear. The very lightweight stylus & cantilever allows lower tracking forces. The good tip shape is the cat's meow (the microridge stylus) and I am baffled why a high-end Grado would sport an "elliptical" stylus. Back to my main point-of-view, what do I care if the beryllium tube flexes a little, provided that the cartridge has the quality of not wearing out the records, esp. on the dense inner grooves.

Yes, I brush the records thoroughly. I use the high-grade bags which used to be called "DVRP" and they are still available new (discwasher valuable record protector). Yes, I set track force and antiskate once, I set to 1.0 gram , and would have a hard time sleeping at night if I had to switch to a $1000 cartridge that wanted 1.8 grams.

Question, is there anybody you can trust who can do an honest inspection of a needle? I think if you go to a dealer, they'll say "yup you need a new one" because they want to sell product.

Thx,

- Norm