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Stereophile V15-IV Review

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Northman said:
So they prefer the brush. Huh....
Click to expand...

Damping brush = lower unwanted signal (low frequency resonance) = lower distortion* = better sound.

* IMD - InterModulation Distortion, from two (or more) frequencies modulating each other. While it’s true that IMD occurs naturally when wanted signals in music interact, this low frequency tonearm/cartridge resonance is being caused by an unwanted frequency caused solely by the resonance of the cartridge cantilever (spring) with an attached weight (cartridge and tonearm). It’s undesirable, and Shure’s excellent damping brush helps improve the sound by reducing it (as shown in figure 4 in that review).:thmbsp:

That’s what Stereophile were saying, in a somewhat pompous way.
 
You might want to edit the thread topic line so that people know from the start whether you're talking about Pickering or Shure V-15s. They, very confusingly, named cartridges with the same model number.
 
That was fun to read.

Especially the parts on capacitance loading and damping; two subjects that come up a lot today.
 
ETI_5000 said:
Damping brush = lower unwanted signal (low frequency resonance) = lower distortion* = better sound.

* IMD - InterModulation Distortion, from two (or more) frequencies modulating each other. While it’s true that IMD occurs naturally when wanted signals in music interact, this low frequency tonearm/cartridge resonance is being caused by an unwanted frequency caused solely by the resonance of the cartridge cantilever (spring) with an attached weight (cartridge and tonearm). It’s undesirable, and Shure’s excellent damping brush helps improve the sound by reducing it (as shown in figure 4 in that review).:thmbsp:

That’s what Stereophile were saying, in a somewhat pompous way.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know. I use mine down too.
 
More interesting was, despite the measurements, people preferred the spherical stylus to the elliptical.

Perhaps that explains in part the enduring appeal of the DL103

Also interesting are their comments re most of the cartridges around at that time.
 
What impressed me about the review was the clear, logical discussion of cartridge sound and the use of measurements -- in the article, not buried in a sidebar -- to help make the writer's point. JGH's reviewing style was much different from the purple prose that today's Stereophile reader has to wade through, and I for one greatly prefer Mr. Holt's approach.
 
At that time, more than a few audio professionals preferred the Shure V 15 Type IV-G to the HE stylus. And many of these were disc cutting engineers or Classical/Easy Listening station engineers. Flatter frequency response was often why over the useful Audio range. Now you likely understand where I am coming from a bit better.
 
grottyash said:
More interesting was, despite the measurements, people preferred the spherical stylus to the elliptical.
Click to expand...

The V15 Type IV has never had an elliptical stylus. The hyperelliptical (HE) stylus is an extended line contact - their version of the Shibata. It has over double the contact up the groove walls that their ellipticals do - 1.5mil versus 0.7mil. Because the Shibata was patented by JVC, most companies chose not to use it, and designed their own line contacts similar to the HE.

Because people kept confusing the HE with an elliptical, Shure later realised they'd made a mistake in naming it, and tried to change the name to hyper-ridge. I suspect the HR is probably the same tip shape, given its identical dimensions to the HE.
 
From the review:

"There are two versions of the V15-IV available: The standard version with an elliptical stylus, and the V15-IVG version with a spherical stylus."
 
grottyash said:
From the review:

"There are two versions of the V15-IV available: The standard version with an elliptical stylus, and the V15-IVG version with a spherical stylus."
Click to expand...

He's wrong, and obviously didn't read Shure's literature before blundering into print. There's no elliptical stylus - it's a hyperelliptical extended line contact. Shure even show the graphs proving how much better it is than an elliptical in the user guide, along with explaining how it has more groove contact. To quote the user guide, "The V15 Type IV has a Hyperelliptical nude diamond tip that results in an elongated tip-groove contact area.* The new tip provides as much as a 25% reduction in distortion over a conventional bi-radial (elliptical) stylus." *That is, it's an extended line contact tip.

They used three different tips:

VN45HE (hyperelliptical extended line contact)
VN45G (conical, or spherical)
VN478E (elliptical 78rpm stylus). Oops:D - OK, so there was one elliptical tip for 78's, but that wasn't what he was talking about - he was making the classic blunder of not reading the literature, and assuming (wrongly) that a hyperelliptical tip was an elliptical tip, when it's an extended line contact, as explained clearly by Shure in the user guide.
 
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illinoisteve said:
You might want to edit the thread topic line so that people know from the start whether you're talking about Pickering or Shure V-15s. They, very confusingly, named cartridges with the same model number.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure Pickering didn't do a V15-IV.

ETI_5000 said:
They used three different tips:

VN45HE (hyperelliptical extended line contact)
VN45G (conical, or spherical)
VN478E (elliptical 78rpm stylus
Click to expand...

They did a VN45MR too, but not until after the review. I managed to snag a couple directly from Shure just after they went out of production. Awesome stylus for the Type IV.
 
A couple of points to further this discussion. J. Gordon Holt was quite biased regarding vinyl. He was a dyed in the wool tape guy. As was his peer, Bert Wyte. For them, it is fair to say, anything related to the LP (i.e. turntable, cartridge, arm, phono preamp) was a compromise. It is wise to keep this in mind so as to understand where the man was coming from. BTW, a preference for analogue tape has a lot of merit. Next, I was a turntable setup guy working in high end retail for most of the 1970s and have a lot of experience with the products under discussion here. I still own Shure V15-IV and V15-Vmr cartridges. These cartridges always work better with the brush down-no exceptions in my experience. Interestingly enough I, too, preferred the conical "G" stylus on both the V15-IIIG and then the V15-IVG.
 
Jeff K said:
I'm pretty sure Pickering didn't do a V15-IV.
Click to expand...

That's true, of course, but anyone looking up Pickering V15s will find that there is a vast number of alpha-numeric suffixes that might follow the V15 part of the cartridge number. Pity the poor AKer who might come to the title of this post with all of those numbers swimming in his or her brain when encountering the "IV" suffix.
 
illinoisteve said:
That's true, of course, but anyone looking up Pickering V15s will find that there is a vast number of alpha-numeric suffixes that might follow the V15 part of the cartridge number. Pity the poor AKer who might come to the title of this post with all of those numbers swimming in his or her brain when encountering the "IV" suffix.
Click to expand...

Point taken, and I will try to keep the new members in mind, but one click quickly reveals it to be a Shure.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
At that time, more than a few audio professionals preferred the Shure V 15 Type IV-G to the HE stylus. And many of these were disc cutting engineers or Classical/Easy Listening station engineers. Flatter frequency response was often why over the useful Audio range. Now you likely understand where I am coming from a bit better.
Click to expand...

Years ago Dr Fulton of Fulton Musical Industries fame was recommending the conical V15-IIIG and I like Bob Stevens and others did prefer it to the other version. It's interesting that the Denon DL 103 also uses a conical stylist and still has a strong loyal following. Maybe Don has some insights on conical stylists? Are or were LPs cut with conical stylists?
 
MudSlideSlim said:
Maybe Don has some insights on conical stylists? Are or were LPs cut with conical stylists?
Click to expand...

I’m pretty certain that the cutting stylus is a triangular shape, that’s designed purely to cut a groove (when heated). Ortofon have a brochure summarising stylus tip shapes here http://ortofon.com/images/hifi/brochures/everything_you_need_to_know_about_styli_types.pdf .

By contrast, styli used for record playback, no matter what shape, are all rounded, at least at the edges, in order to minimise record wear.

The conical stylus does have drawbacks, such as the pinch effect, where the stylus gets pinched and forced up out of the groove, which is why it was modified to produce the other shapes, which have less distortion. Unfortunately other shapes need more careful setting up (alignment) than a conical to get the best sound, which is one reason why the conical stylus still has devotees - it's also much cheaper to make.

Although the Denon DL-103 has a conical stylus, it's one of the better ones, in that Denon give it a much higher polish than most manufacturers, which helps minimise record and stylus wear.:thmbsp:
 
needlestein said:
"Readers accustomed to seeing the pickup reports in High Fidelity and Stereo Review may not realize how truly rotten most cartridges are."

Nothing like a strong lead. I appreciate the "no nonsense" approach. If audio writers kept to this succinct style, my eyes wouldn't glaze over so much when investigating a product.

To those who have both: how does the V15-IV compare to the M97xE? I have the latter.
Click to expand...

On My Kenwood KD 990 the V 15-IV is superior by far to my ears.
I must admit i know nothing about capacitance loading so ive read that affects the M97xE positively so i´m comparing them by just changing the cart/headshell combo with the necessary adjustments.
 
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