I am impressed that your subwoofers can do zero Hz.
@lewm Eminent Technology's sub can do DC if the blades are locked 
In fact a fan is what gave him the idea.
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.
Showing 6 responses by atmasphere
@mijostyn If you use that formula using 1,000,000 instead of 1, you input R in Ohms, C in uF and the frequency is in Hz; IOW 1,000,000/RxCx2Pi You're using a digital crossover for the amps so you don't really need to passively roll them off, right? You might be able to boost the high frequency (+14KHz) output by using a small coupling cap to bypass the transformer. It has inter-winding capacitance anyway which is usually swamped out by loading the secondary. |
@rauliruegas Its clear you misunderstood. When we were testing for 'ringing' it was on the bench using test equipment. I had thought that clear from my post but apparently not. Look for the bit about using a square wave, something that isn't available in most systems. We observe the 'ringing' (distortion) using an oscilloscope.
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@lewm IIRC we were running a square wave through the cartridge and the loading was to reduce ringing. Unlike a LOMC, high output cartridges have a lot more inductance and (again, IIRC) could 'ring' at audio frequencies.
When you load a cartridge with lower resistance values, you provide greater mechanical damping of the cartridge mechanism. It may well be that this is why we were using lower values than the calculators suggest. @mijostyn Obviously controlling capacitance is a big deal; that's why tonearm cables tend to be low capacitance. 100pf for a 1 meter run is typical. |
@mijostyn Yeah, Shure claimed 1.2 gr was OK, but IME it isn't. Back then a number of cartridge manufacturers were in a bit of a competition to see who could get to the lowest tracking pressure, as they all seemed to think that was the major component to record wear, when the real culprit was clumsy tonearms. I would try 22K across the input, so the total load is actually about 15K. |
@mijostyn You really need to track it a bit heavier- 1.5 helps it a lot. Also, loading it is paramount or it can be a bit in your face like any MM cartridge. If you don't load a MM cartridge, you really don't get to hear what they are about. If your stylus is good and the suspension not perished, I'd start with about a 22K load and work your way down until the harshness bit is gone, but no loss of higher frequencies. If it seems rolled off, 22KOhms might be too low a load. Or you can use this calculator which uses a different technique. Since the inductance of your cartridge is 500mH the real variable is the capacitance of your tonearm cable. You can see the results in the graph; obviously a 100pf load (which is very close to many low capacitance phono cables if they are only 1 meter in length) is nearly ideal. |