Consider the dear old Shure 97xe...it's £70! And it's great.

[struth]

Having read all 57 pages of this thread I've come very late to this party. It's still going though right ;-).
I've been in the vinyl doldrums for some time now so I thought maybe trying something different on the cartridge front might just inject some life back into it, so I managed to find an M55e on Ebay with a stock Shure stylus last week and it arrived Saturday morning so I set about fitting it to my Well Tempered Versalex. This is what it looks like:
Attachment 19222

I've been grinning at it ever since. What a find! It's put the fun back into vinyl replay for me and the most shocking part of this is that I'm in absolutely no rush to re-fit my Dynavector DV20X2L!! It feels a little bit like selling off the family saloon and buying a Caterham 7. The DV was more refined, certainly, but this is just digging out more music, more groove, what sounds like an extra octave of bass, but it doesn't get overblown. This is how I remember vinyl sounding a long time ago - So it's not my ears afterall.

Thanks to everyone who flagged this up as a giant killer - You're absolutely right. I'm sure at some point I'll feel the need to get a SAS stylus to go with it, but for the time being I'm busy digging out records I've not played in years. That's what it's all about!

REALLY happy!

Similar to me then. I went as far as selling my mc, so pleased was i with the stock m55 and stock stylus. Getting hardcto find surprisingly as at their peak shure made 28 thousand carts a week. Many must have been m55's

[cuddles]

I'm totally sold on Shures , both the m55 and m75. They do everything right to my ears and the knowledge that all I need to do is replace the stylus as and when its needed is sweet indeed. I don't think I'll be hankering after anything else. I'll be selling my fancy MC here soon

[lovejoy]

I think I'm in agreement there. I can't see me holding onto my DV20X2L for much longer. I'm enjoying vinyl in a way that I haven't done for a long time with this Shure. The Jico stylus sounds interesting, but I'm in no mood to upset the current balance as it's just so musical.

One other thing I have noticed. There were certain records that I've bought in the last couple of years that I had believed were poor pressings, sounding dull and lifeless on my DV cart. I bought a cheap re-press of Dave Brubeck's Time Out from Rise last year and it sounded dreadful. Playing it on the Shure though is a different matter. Perfectly enjoyable. It's almost as if the Shure stylus is ploughing a different part of the groove that just happens to contain a bit more music. Very odd.

[Wakefield Turntables]

The Shure has legendary tracking ability.