Mystery Shure Cartridge

[Ammonite Audio]

I'm hoping that someone here may be able to identify this mystery Shure cartridge, which came fitted to an SMEIII arm, on my Thorens TD124. Whatever it is, the plastic body has been removed, and a rather fine quality alloy plate fitted to the top. I've looked at the stylus under the microscope, and it looks like a fairly good elliptical; certainly not a cheap conical or spherical. There are no surviving markings at all. Is it some sort of M75?

http://i52.tinypic.com/2s9au5l.jpg

http://i56.tinypic.com/oqhw1y.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/rk2421.jpg

[vinylspinner]

Hi Hugo,

I may be wrong, but that looks like one of the v15 series, poss v15 3 that has been modded.

Nigel

[DSJR]

It's certainly a V15mk3 HE, which was a goodie as-was, but I do remember a company doing a mod similar to this, either Stilton Audio (who did my OC9) or the chaps behind the DeccaPod, to which it looks very similar. Whatever, the HE stylus transformed a V15III and if the tip is still good, you should great a very fine sound from it with any luck.

[Ammonite Audio]

All of the images of the V15 that I've seen have had markings on the side of the body, but this one has none at all. Is that significant? On doing some research, I found that Slate Audio did a mod on the V15, and there is a PDF of a HiFi World review at http://downloads.nakedresource.com/download_centre/index.php?slate_audio.pdf . It does look very much like mine, although mine has the plastic bit still attached to the stylus assembly.

I also found this photo of the V15 III stylus, which does look like mine:

http://www.needledoctor.com/core/media/media.nl?id=2238&c=ACCT106601&h=c7c3f0b2f291258451f6

[DSJR]

The original elliptical needle (cloudy looking rock with a sort of elliptical profile ;)) was in a black plastic frame, but the later HE stylus was red coloured like yours.

I still have a V15III and IMO the sound of the stock article is neutral, but hard and "flat" in spatial terms - the V15VMR was loads better here. The HE stylus brought an easier, less "hard" presentation for some reason, and the sense of space was improved I thought. Getting rid of the V15 plastic moulding for mounting it and replacing it with something stronger could only be a good thing I reckon. Indeed, Shure did an elegant version of this I think with the Ultra 500, one of the finest MM's (if not the nicest sounding MM) ever made IMO..

The missing stylus guard has been done as the guard could rattle, especially witout the mounting body to butt up to.

[Rare Bird]

I thought the Technics '205'/'207' better sounding cartridges

[DSJR]

Course they were, but they're even harder to get decent styli for I think..

[Rare Bird]

Course they were, but they're even harder to get decent styli for I think..

I have a '207' here but an original NOS styli is near on impossible

[synsei]

I hate to spoil the party here chaps, but I have an M95EDM sitting here in front of me and the cartridge body (excluding the plastic crap around it) is identical to Shuggies... :scratch: