Radio Shack RXT6 aka Shure M111E

[lesW]

Grateful,

The V15 III was an excellent cartridge. I ran one for years. I personally preferred it over the IV, but that's just me. It was designed by my predesesor.

About the Beryllium...let me explain. The holy grail with things like carts and speakers is the transverse speed of sound of the material. It's a measure of
specific stiffness. In the III and the IV in order to get a low mass the cantilever first non rigid body resonance had to be in the audio range.
In the III that made for a small sag and peak. In the IV it made for a lesser sag and two peaks. They were all well controlled.

But Beryllium... with it's speed of sound between two and three times higher than aluminum allowed us to get that cantelever resonance well out of the audio range without compromising mass. A high moving mass will just rip
apart record groove modulation.

Another part is the geometry of the cantelever. Materials like boron and diamond have a speed of sound similar to Beryllium, but it's not so easy
to make a geometry like the microwall tube so you can take advantage of the properties. An airplane could be made of the very best high strength
aerospace alloys, but if it were a solid piece it would never get off the ground. That's the problem with many boron and ruby carts.

But I will certainly think about the classic cartridges. I'm glad those good folks
at JICO etc. can supply new styli for them, but they CAN'T know the special damping materials needed, and They CAN'T know how the cartridges were individually voiced...every single one...individually.

I don't know...If I can't justify setting up an operation perhaps I could help them out on how to voice classical Styli.

And about 80% of a cartridges sound is determined by the stylus.

I hope I can justify making cartridges though. That's why I'm asking you about it. I need to sell a lot more than just a few.

Les

 

[lesW]

Manfred, thanks for your reply. 200 euro or thereabouts might be possible.
It depends on economies of scale. That's why I need to ask folks...to get an idea of what the scale might be.

You have a great advantage since our dollar is almost worthless, because we printed too many.:sigh:

At least for the moment...

Les

 

[grateful]

Great explaination Les, and I fully understand that Beryllium is the best material. There is an economic principal here also. That principal is good enough is best... Since Beryllium is so expensive, and hard to deal with why not consider improving on the type 4 design using conventional materials. I sort of think that Shure has done this with the M97xe, but many are critical of the result. I personally think the cartridge is a good design but could be better. Sometimes you need to take a step back to move forward.

 

[lesW]

thanks gateful.

Here's a suprise for you... the IV had beryllium in it too....in the form
of a short rod filling the hollow aluminum stepped shank right at the magnet.

What we have going for us is this: Yes Be is crazy expensive, but styli
cantilevers are REAL little. So It might not break the bank, depending on scale.

Les

 

[grateful]

I have always loved the smoothness and fidelity of the Shure carts. I think they are the best. I have never owned a type 5 but have had the type 3 and 4. Behind me in my pile of stuff, I have a Thorens TD-145 with a RXT-6 in it. I am definately motivated to connect it to my main system consisting of a NAD 1700 Crown CE-2000 and vintage AR-9 speakers. Based on your write up here I believe I have some of Shure's best technology. Does this have a beryllium cantilever? Where would you rank it, better or worse than the type 3?

 

[lesW]

I'm pretty sure I did not do the rxt-6. I never recall doing a pmount ratshack.
I think it was done at a later time than I was there.

A Microwall Be cantilever will be a dark steel brown/gray color. The only ratshack I recall with one is the v-15rs. It had the cantilever of my ml140HE, but an older type magnetic structure. It was as good as a V.

My guess is the rxt-6 had a v15 III shank. If it's a stepped shank it's a IV. BTW the IV shank was I think the most complicated and expensive one we ever did. The 3 part cantilever and the dynamic absorber made it pretty complicated. It was harder to voice, because the DA had to be tuned precisely. It was on the back of the magnet.

Rest assured you have a very good cartridge, but I fear if it has an original stylus the bearing has hardened up a bit. Many of my original
shure carts are completely unplayable. I have to rebearing them, even if they were never used. But...they are older than the RXT-6 so perhaps yours is ok.

Hey I have a Thorens TD 160...and a pair of ar-9s! They are in the dining room. I have a recording studio including some of my speaker designs and also some A7 voice of the theaters!

I exclusively used two Thorens TD 124 tables to design and test cartridges.
They were voiced on a rig in production on a td-124 as well. SME arms of course. They would run 8 hours a day every work day for a decade!

Les

 

[grateful]

Cool, great minds think alike. I am a big fan of Ar speakers and also have the 3A, 2ax, 10 pi, 11, and 98LS in my collection. They seem to go very well with Shure carts. The rxt6 is newer than the type 3, it has the dynamic stabilizer. I suspect it is era 4 technology.

 

[hakaplan]

I'm pretty sure I did not do the rxt-6. I never recall doing a pmount ratshack.
I think it was done at a later time than I was there.

A Microwall Be cantilever will be a dark steel brown/gray color. The only ratshack I recall with one is the v-15rs. It had the cantilever of my ml140HE, but an older type magnetic structure. It was as good as a V.

My guess is the rxt-6 had a v15 III shank. If it's a stepped shank it's a IV. BTW the IV shank was I think the most complicated and expensive one we ever did. The 3 part cantilever and the dynamic absorber made it pretty complicated. It was harder to voice, because the DA had to be tuned precisely. It was on the back of the magnet.

Rest assured you have a very good cartridge, but I fear if it has an original stylus the bearing has hardened up a bit. Many of my original
shure carts are completely unplayable. I have to rebearing them, even if they were never used. But...they are older than the RXT-6 so perhaps yours is ok.
Les

No, the RXT6 has a thicker shank like the M carts. The V15III has the narrower shank. If the IV was that complicated, it makes one wonder if JICO has truly reproduced it according the Shure specs.

 

[lesW]

Howard, I can only guess. I havn't seen it, at least for a long time. if I had a
high res picture I could tell. Again, I didn't do that one.

As far as JICO doing the IV, I'm sure they are doing as good a job as they can. The dynamic absorber was a trick to voice. It was a little rubber resonant stub. It was pulled around the magnet with a rubber sleeve, kinda like pulling your socks up with a soda can stuffed in the toe area. How much and where it was pulled tuned the absorber, which turned a single mechanical impedance variation into two lower amplitude ones. It's just like a ported speaker enclosure really. This needed to be done because it was within the audio range. If it wasn't done properly it could loosen and detune, kinda like socks riding down.

I kind of doubt if the beryllium stub is in there. It might be...but again it's so expensive.

The V , V15 RS and ML140 did not need this. We could get the primary shank resonance as high as 30-50kHz. So it was simpler to build and easier and more stable as far as voicing. But the material cost was higher of course.

Les

 

[Pavioni]

Oh, gee, Pavioni I just noticed you and paul_c were on that old thread!

You were the one that called my cart a "fat ortophon with a snowplow hooked to it".

Ok, Ok, so it wouldn't win any beauty contest. Neither would I. It had that look so I could replace expensive metal dynamic stabilizer parts with carbon
fiber filled polymer to get performance at a more reasonable price. It was fat to fit the best quality magnetic structure.

It outperformed the v15.

I'll try to make prettier carts in future...ok?:thmbsp::thmbsp::thmbsp:

Les

Les, I owe you a handshake and a drink - your ML140 design is easily one of the most underappreciated cartridges of the 20th century. I especially appreciate its tracking abilities when mated with the low/medium mass tonearms I prefer. Thank you sir, from a happy customer.

But I can't retract my opinion on its looks, which is something you should consider with any re-release of a TOTL Shure. The signature look of the "big block" V-15 series is a selling point not to be ignored any more than the Nike swoosh or Coca-Cola cursive - just check the threads here and other sites about "hi-fi porn". I wonder if the success of the mediocre M-97Xe isn't somewhat related to its retro apprearance? I know I tried one recently in part because of the looks.

Point of (not so idle) curiosity - what kinda capitalization are we taking here to start up production of a new cartridge design?

 

[lesW]

>Point of (not so idle) curiosity - what kinda capitalization are we taking here to start up production of a new cartridge design?

For me not so much. That's why I am so seriously considering it. I already own an acoustics lab, electronics lab, and machine shop used in my consulting business.

Back in the day we had budgets of millions and tooled up very expensive
progressive dies, punch sets, and injection molds. I wouldn't be able to do that, but it's not a problem... because we have laser and plasma cutting
capability and High speed CNC machining facilities.

The biggest setup costs would be hot forming and transfer molding for
cantilevers and bearings. We can do that easily enough. Doing diamond
tips is a question though....we can readily do that but would rather not.

I agree the big block look would be the best.

I've also looked at making the cart active. It would be low inductance with
a state of the art balanced pre amp built in. This wouldn't cost all that much,
and would allow moving coil like high frequency performance using just a line input. Noise and distortion would be almost unmeasurable. Do you think
and active design would fly? Tube enthusiasts might not like it...But I can give MUCH better performance by not using the standard 47k phono inputs.
I'd like your opinion.

Les

 

[Stanton681EEES]

>Point of (not so idle) curiosity - what kinda capitalization are we taking here to start up production of a new cartridge design?

For me not so much. That's why I am so seriously considering it. I already own an acoustics lab, electronics lab, and machine shop used in my consulting business.

Back in the day we had budgets of millions and tooled up very expensive
progressive dies, punch sets, and injection molds. I wouldn't be able to do that, but it's not a problem... because we have laser and plasma cutting
capability and High speed CNC machining facilities.

The biggest setup costs would be hot forming and transfer molding for
cantilevers and bearings. We can do that easily enough. Doing diamond
tips is a question though....we can readily do that but would rather not.

I agree the big block look would be the best.

I've also looked at making the cart active. It would be low inductance with
a state of the art balanced pre amp built in. This wouldn't cost all that much,
and would allow moving coil like high frequency performance using just a line input. Noise and distortion would be almost unmeasurable. Do you think
and active design would fly? Tube enthusiasts might not like it...But I can give MUCH better performance by not using the standard 47k phono inputs.
I'd like your opinion.

Les

Sounds good to me as I smile from ear to ear.
Question who designed the M91ED one great cartridge it's one of my favs from the old days. I still have the one I bought new in 1973 from Audio Whare house.
Paid $9.99 for it.

 

[lesW]

Not sure who designed the M91ed. Way before my time there. It was my first Shure cartridge. I think I got it when I was a senior in High school. Ran it on a Dual 1212 table IIRC.

Les

 

[grateful]

The RXT-6 in my Thorens TD-145 sound like a million bucks. As good as any cartridge I have ever owned. The cantilever is boron as far as I understand, It is very thin like a V15 3.

 

[shure_sounds]

Here is what I have to say: After study of these Shure threads for many, many months, I had to compare the many Shures out there and in doing so I would select my choice for replacing the V15VxMR which I will eventually ruin. To make a long story short, it was the M97 Era IV with the HE stylus that did it, beat everything I tried, and I have in my hands now a lifetime supply of replacements (which are costly to obtain.) What intrigued me the most about the old M97 is how disimilar it sounds to the latest M97xE. The later is a sonic step back; it has none of the attack, shine, authorithy and fullness of sound that the M97 conveys. And all this information off two records and a very modest test setup, ultimatley listening through very revealing AKG 240 headphones. I wish that Shure had taken acoustic design of the EraIV as inspiration for the M97xE and not just the Model number. I hope lesW and the people that run Shure read and understand this note I make here. And the bigger picture is that Shure is running from a market that is expanding and has great potential: the re-emergance of the vinyl format. It is just going to go nuts because the word is out that it sounds better than digital, and it's cool factor is really getting the kids interested. So my point is: Shure - make a cartridge that duplicates the legendary sound of the M97 Era IV or improve the M97xE to the sonic status of that device. If you can ... you will recapture the analog market in the growth trend now presented.
That is all I want to say. Thanks everyone on AK

 

[SPAM]

I think it is the N110HE replacement from Jico that Hakaplan suggests, the $19 bargain.

In future I'm going to have to learn to JUMP whenever he mentions a bargain.

One month later that N110HE replacement is up to $58. Ouch!

Not to mention that other former bargain-of-the-century ATN152LP that was also $19, before Howard let the cat out of the bag, is now $49.
Better bite the bullet now before it too joins the $58 club I guess

 

[howie123]

BTW the IV shank was I think the most complicated and expensive one we ever did. The 3 part cantilever and the dynamic absorber made it pretty complicated. It was harder to voice, because the DA had to be tuned precisely. It was on the back of the magnet.

I bought my last Type IV stylus back in 1988 (a VN45MR, $74 USD at the time) and just last month started using it again after nearly 20 years. I have to say that this cartridge/stylus combo is the best I've ever heard over the years (at least for what I could afford to spend), and I have heard many since my dad got into hi-fi in 1960 and myself in the mid-'70s. It's a shame you can't get original replacements anymore.

 

[hakaplan]

In future I'm going to have to learn to JUMP whenever he mentions a bargain.

One month later that N110HE replacement is up to $58. Ouch!

Not to mention that other former bargain-of-the-century ATN152LP that was also $19, before Howard let the cat out of the bag, is now $49.
Better bite the bullet now before it too joins the $58 club I guess

I have to learn when to keep my mouth shut. But actually I've been recommending that N110HE for easily over a year, so it's not like it happened overnight.

 

[SPAM]

I shan't cry under the bridge too long, since I didn't even get the M99E whose photo I posted back on page 2, and don't have any other Shure/Realistic bodies yet.
I'll turn my attention instead to the Grado GF2 I got yesterday (with bent cantilever.) As long as its coils aren't open when I test it tonight, then I'll probably be ordering a Red stylus for it soon (before the price goes up!)
And I did already go ahead and order JICO's ATN152LP for my VS235EP body.

Seriously Howard, I hope you won't stop sharing your knowledge & shopping tips anytime soon.

 

[Quest]

I thought lesW might appreciate this old ad I found in the 1984 Audio magazine.