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M97xE Channel Separation

steely

steely

Active Member
I recently picked up a Hi-Fi News test record. With my Shure M97xE, on bands 1, 4 and 5, where there is audio on only one channel at a time, I can clearly hear "leakage" over to the supposedly quiet channel. When I play the same three test tracks with my AT15XE cart and ATN20SS stylus, the channel without an audio signal is virtually silent.

Is that degree of crosstalk (I hope I'm using the term correctly) common for the Shure? Is it a function of the cartridge, the stylus or both? Would a JICO SAS offer better separation than the stock M97xE stylus?

According to the manufacturers' specs, channel separation is 25 dB at 1 kHz for the M97xE, and either 28 dB or 32 kHz at 1 kHz for the AT15XE cart with the stock stylus, depending on which of two Audio-Technica spec sheets I look at. The AT20SS channel separation is listed as 35 dB at 1Khz.
 
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Coincidently, there is a thread over on Vinyl Engine kind of about the same thing.

The title is something like, "M97xE beats V15IV, says Shure."

There is a Mr. LeSurf who measured 17dB of separation with the M97 and claims Shure told him they changed the spec to 17 dB but I would like to see corroboration of that.

The stylus size/mass entered the issue, too.

Stylus mass would, of course, directly affect separation.

Tomorrow, I am going to try the separation tests on my test records with the M97xE too.

Doug
 
Do you know what is the specification for the old Shure M 97HE cartridge?

Just curious on how different they may be.:scratch2:
 
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