Jeff K
Super Member
https://www.stereophile.com/content/fidelity-research-fr-1-mk3f-phono-cartridge
The magazine just posted this 1980 review. What I found interesting was the V15-IV comment.
"This is in fact one of the few MCs that doesn't suffer from a brightness suckout and a high-end sizzle. In fact, it sounds rather like a Shure V15-IV elliptical in tonal balance, even to the point of sharing that cartridge's slight hardness. (The spherical G version of the Shure sounds more neutral.) But there the resemblance ends …..
....While recognizing what it is that turns people on about moving-coil cartridges—their uncanny clarity (similar to that of the Decca cartridges we were high on some years ago, but minus the upper-middle glare) and detail, we have yet to find a MC that does as well below 10kHz as does our comfortable-old-shoe Shure V-15 IV. We know there are other cartridges that image better, have finer detail-resolution, and provide more of that delicate airiness at the high end, but our first criterion for a cartridge is how tape-like its sound is through most of the musical middle range, and—to date—the Shure stands unsurpassed in that respect. We must however reiterate, to the point of utter tediousness, that our preference is for the G version of the Shure, with the spherical tip. To us, the elliptical simply sounds hard, and when we want to listen to records for the music, that is something we find even more irritating than the (to us) minor shortcomings of the Shure."
I've heard folks discuss the merits of the hyper elliptical vs MR on the Type IV, but never spherical.
The magazine just posted this 1980 review. What I found interesting was the V15-IV comment.
"This is in fact one of the few MCs that doesn't suffer from a brightness suckout and a high-end sizzle. In fact, it sounds rather like a Shure V15-IV elliptical in tonal balance, even to the point of sharing that cartridge's slight hardness. (The spherical G version of the Shure sounds more neutral.) But there the resemblance ends …..
....While recognizing what it is that turns people on about moving-coil cartridges—their uncanny clarity (similar to that of the Decca cartridges we were high on some years ago, but minus the upper-middle glare) and detail, we have yet to find a MC that does as well below 10kHz as does our comfortable-old-shoe Shure V-15 IV. We know there are other cartridges that image better, have finer detail-resolution, and provide more of that delicate airiness at the high end, but our first criterion for a cartridge is how tape-like its sound is through most of the musical middle range, and—to date—the Shure stands unsurpassed in that respect. We must however reiterate, to the point of utter tediousness, that our preference is for the G version of the Shure, with the spherical tip. To us, the elliptical simply sounds hard, and when we want to listen to records for the music, that is something we find even more irritating than the (to us) minor shortcomings of the Shure."
I've heard folks discuss the merits of the hyper elliptical vs MR on the Type IV, but never spherical.