Opinions greatly appreciated

Hi Krazeeyk,
What turntable and tonearm is your dad using? No one could make a solid recommendation without knowing that.

The trick is with load impedance set for MC cart at or near 100Ohms. It's definitely not enough for MM cartridge.
Since V15 is considered to be lower-output MM you may use MC phono with great benefit if you replace 100Ohms resistor by 47Kohms.
The resistor can easily be located first one on the input signal path(there are two for left and right channel).

If you purchased the Creek new from a dealer, maybe he will take it back for the OBH-8. Worth a try.

I doubt you will find a better cartridge in that price range. If you can stretch it by a couple hundred dollars, there are a few choices. But I agree with Doug, we need more info.

No one has responded directly to the questions in the last 2 sentences of your post, so I'll go out on a limb: I think you would have to spend at least $300-400 to find a better used moving coil cartridge, and you'd give up some the important performance qualities of the Shure.

For reasons I've never understood, the audiophile community has a strange reluctance to give the Shure V15V the respect it deserves (although TAS magazine now rates it as "Best Buy" in their "Recommended Components" list). When used with a good medium-mass tonearm, mounted to a good turntable, the Shure V15V (particularly the latest incarnation, the V15VxMR) is an outstanding value in phono cartridges. It offers very flat frequency response, superb tracking (arguably one of the best tracking cartrides made at ANY price), warm musicality, very low noise, user-replaceable styli, etc., etc. It's moderate output (3.0 mV, as I recall) is best suited to a phono preamp of medium gain (about 40 db), and it needs to be terminated with a 47k Ohm impedance, but other than those two points, it's quite "un-fussy".

So, in short, unless you plan to spend quite a bit more money, I think you're well advised to stick with the "Shure thing".

Sdcampbell,
I quite agree about the Shure V15VxMR. It's a good cartridge. Considering the price it's a GREAT cartridge.

Unfortunately Krazeeyk's dad doesn't have a V, he has a IV. Different can o' worms.

Until Krazeeyk returns to further enlighten us, lets combine your suggestion with Ozzy62's or Marakanetz's:

- Return the Creek for the MM model (if possible) OR,
- change the input resistors to 47Kohms AND,
- trade the V15IV for a V15VxMR ($200 or so).

No MC I've ever heard of will come close to that setup on that budget. Just need to be sure the tonearm is right for the cartridge. The Shure V's are pretty tolerant but who knows?