So I did this to my Shure SC35C

I've been really enjoying the SC35C on my near arm over the last few weeks so I mounted the internal body in a new aluminium shell.

Here's the process:

First get everything you need laid out.


Here's the SC35C next to the new body.


Remove the stylus.


Then you use an Exacto knife to pry internal body out of the cheap plastic shell.

 

Keep twisting until it pops loose.


Here's the empty plastic shell next to the internal body.


The new body gets taped off with painters tape. The plastic body has the cartridge sit at an angle. Four little pieces of lead shot are used to keep the correct cartridge angle.


Then you mix the epoxy and scoop some into the body. I didn't get an pictures of this part because you need to work fast but here's a picture from the seller's Ebay page.


Next you carefully place the body in the new shell.

 

After 24 hours of the epoxy curing you end up with something like this.


I quite like the results. I get more focus and a wider, deeper soundstage while still keeping all the things I like about this cart (bass authority, midrange clarity and it handles beat up records with ease). Removing the plastic shell also opens of the the choices for stylus for this cart, you're no longer limited to just those that fit the SC35C/M35X/M78S/N44GX body and can use options for the V15V as well.

 

OK, that's pretty hardcore.

 

Very cool!

 

Good job, mate!

 

Thats interesting. So you can now fit v15 mk5 stylus.
The obvious question is how does it sound with a v15 stylus.
If its comparable then the saving on buying a body for v15 will be good news. I paid £50 for the v15 mk3 body, and a further £100 or so fir the Jico stylus.

Many thanks for the info. Let me wish you a happy new year, while i consider possible options this body makes possible. I love Shure cartridges

 

I'm not even sure which stylus to buy yet, I know that Shure uses two different shaft sizes and that Shure made V15V bodies using both sizes. I'm not sure which shaft size the the SC35C body matches up to.

 

That's fantastic. Nice job. I've long suspected that the limiting factor of the better Shure cartridges have been the bodies themselves. For example, the Shure V15V-MR's technical performance was nearly flawless but, subjectively, it didn't always stack up well against some of the other TOTL cartridges.

 

If you have a current M97xE stylus (same shaft as the V15VxMR) and it fits, then the SC35C body uses the fatter shaft. The original V15V-MR (no "x") used a thinner shaft.

 

I'm thinking it's probably the fatter shaft because I can't imagine there being a shaft fatter than this one.

 

You're probably right. It's probably just as well too since the suspensions in the older stylus assemblies are starting to dry out.

 

The big question is how did you fabricate the shell?

 

You can buy one on Ebay. The seller has a bunch of nice pictures too.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/181965427250

 

Fascinating!

 

Nice work! I´m guessing the design will be more rigid, and that´s a good thing.

 

This is crazy, I never hear of anyone using a 35C for anything let alone critical listening. And just changing the shell opens it up like that? Amazing. Now I wonder what other low budget carts can be opened up similar to this.

 

Nice! I did a similar experiment with a Shure M75 as well as a couple of older Empire carts, all to the same effect: great improvement just like dmckean is describing. The aluminum bodies on the DL103 series from Terence at Paradox, the ebay seller mentioned above, do wonders to those carts; I was (and continue to be as I put more hours on it) particularly surprised at the 103R. But...

Just before the frenzy breaks out and 35C goes up twofold in price all over the web, let's observe this in some relevant context. The 35C is a very low compliance cartridge, requiring VTF from 4g to 5g; this alone should scare a good few away (The [well-supported scientifically] argument that a conical stylus with a certain diameter tip will produce no more damage to a grove than a smaller elliptical at a fraction of VTF is a whole different discussion).

So the SC35C ideally needs at least a medium- effective mass tonearm. I never tried this cart in a repotted version, but I have played with the unmodified original on three tonearms: one was a rega variant (origin live), the lightest of the three, and then I tried it on the ATP-12PT, a medium-heavy arm at 21g. The Shure -- unsurprisingly -- did absolutely the best in heaviest of the three, the EMT 929, which has 30+ gram effective mass; at near 5g VTF.

Zero doubt about the benefit of the aluminum body but just a caution to keep the whole arm-cartridge system in mind; if you have a lighter arm perhaps a more compliant cartridge would be best to experiment with... M44 series might be a good candidate for this if one wanted to stay with Shure in that case...

P.S. Dmckean, please tell us how it compares to your Kiseki or Zu through the Haufe step-ups, and I swear this isn't an attempt to derail this thread into MM vs. MC territory -- just genuinely curious, as I have done some similar experiments and we also seem to have some general crossover in gear and music preferences.

 

P.S. SC 35-C is designed to track optimally at 4- 5 grams. Not for most people save for the high mass broadcast tonearm crowd. However, by changing the stylus to a N35x, you'd be just fine.

 

Really wish I saw this a month ago. Was removing one from a headshell to mount another cart, in the process somehow the cart seperated from the plastic body as you have done intentionally with the exacto knife. I was initially going to keep it on hand but I figured it was toast at that point so I tossed it!

 

Tracking is a little high and I recommend setting it with a test record. My last arm needed it to be over 4 grams but my current tonarm is happy with it around 3 grams. This is probably from the greater damping you get with a unipivot.

There's plenty of compliant cartridge options for these bodies. If you have a medium mass tonearm then get the M35X. That stylus doesn't have the same ability to make old beat up records so pretty decent, but it does everything else the normal SC35C stylus does. There's also even lower compliance conicals available and even a Jico SAS. Removing it from the plastic shell like I did will open up even more stylus options, although at this point you'd be a pioneer in trying them.

The Denon 103R has a much more forward presentation and more top end than the SC35C. They're both dynamic carts that have excellent midrange. The SC35C comes off as better balanced. I really love the 103s but I've lived with them almost exclusively for the last decade and I'm starting to tire of them some. I would actually say the SC35C voiced pretty similar to the Kiseki. It's hard to really compare because MM and MC have really different presentations. I've been pretty happy with the SC35C in my system the last month.

 

There's been hype around this cart on the forums for almost a decade now and it recently had a great review from Herb Reichert in Stereophile. It was originally designed by Shure with the BBC for their MP1-18 tonearm with was paired with their modified SP10s during the late 70s. It was mostly used on their Radio 1 stations. Many, many other radio stations worldwide used this for vinyl playback all the way up until they switch to digital. The R&D from this project was used in the creation of V15V-MR consumer cart. Both carts feature a low 425mH inductance similar to that of the Shure M3D, one of the original stereo broadcast carts. The Shure SC35C body uses a cheaper construction than either of these classic carts.

 

Very nice work!

 

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away… I went about using this cart with both the 78 stylus and the JICO SAS, and would swap the stylus as necessary... This was a pain and so not too long after I ended up getting an m97xe+The appropriate SAS stylus mounted on a dedicated headshell, but I liked what I heard from this combo and it certainly came very close to what the m97xe was capable of. Very clean sound and powerful bass. I still have the SAS stylus for this cart in a drawer somewhere and it has very low hours on it, maybe someone here may be interested in experimenting with it? I can also probably upload samples of needledrops I did on this setup

 

I'd like to hear these.