There's a great inexpensive conical for the larger opening Shure cartridges under the Fidelitone brand on ebay. They are new issue. Packages can be faulted for being deceptive, but the price isn't. It used to say N97E on it, or something, but the seller later changed it to the conical designation, "B," I think.
Yes, I have the N97B on my M97Xe and it is a real nice sounding conical stylus. Can't wait to try conicals on the V-15III/IV.
Except no one is making a replacement stylus with a Beryllium shaft anymore, NOS left is shooting up in price for the JICO SAS.
It is a good part of it. Especially considering the new JICO replacement stylus have either a sapphire cantilever or tapered ruby cantilever. Vastly different from the beryllium.
There are two factors which impact on a cantilever performance. The first is the specific modulus, which is the Young's modulus over the density. Beryllium has a massive advantage over Aluminium: Aluminium: 26 Beryllium: 155 (Diamond: 347) The next thing is the shape - solid or tubular. Shure went in to this in some detail when the decided to go for a Beryllium thin-wall tube, with an exceptionally difficult manufacturing process (described in their 1984 patent US4,473,897) The basic upshot is that if you keep the tube mass the same, and make it larger in diameter and reduce the wall thickness the stiffness improves significantly. Basically the stiffness is a (distance)^4 thing. I've worked out the formulas that Shure used (basically the stiffness of rods and tubes), and get the same performance figures (Shure called it "Shank Performance Ratio") as are set out in the patent and the V15V instruction manual. So going from a 10mil (0.25mm) rod to an 18mil (0.46mm) tube with a 0.5mil (12.7 microns) wall you get approximately a 6x improvement in stiffness. When you add the 6x increase in specific modulus going from Aluminium to Beryllium, and you get a massive benefit from Shure's, alas now lost, thin wall Beryllium technology. Most cantilevers are now boron, sapphire, ruby or diamond solid rods, and are actually less stiff than Shure's Beryllium thin wall tubes.
Yes - too true. It is a crying shame that they lost faith in vinyl, given the resurgence in the medium. Most high end moving coil cartridges seem to use Boron rods 0.3mm diameter (11.8mil). Even given the greater specific modulus, the Shure beryllium cantilever was 3.8 times greater in stiffness/effective mass ratio (assuming the same length). Which essentially means that the cantilever resonance frequency is (root 3.8) = 1.9 times higher than a current state of the art boron cantilever. I can find one cartridge that uses a diamond cantilever - the Dynavector Karat. That is 0.25mm diameter (9.8mil), but it is only 1.7mm long as compared with 6.25mm for the old-style Shure. Since the stiffness goes as (1/length)cubed, the Dynavector has a cantilever length factor of 50 as compared with a 1/4" Shure. Diamond is also has a specific modulus 2.2 times that of beryllium. All those factors suggest that the Dynavector should have a stiffness to mass ratio 25 times higher than the Shure thin wall Beryllium cantilever. The upper frequency is a whopping 100kHz - which figures given the factor of (root 25) increase in cantilever resonance frequency I've almost persuaded myself to buy one
Yes, me too. That's the first cartridge that came to mind when you first started posting your very mathematical observations. There's actually one with a channel out on ebay right now, and another one with good channels and a missing cantilever. I've really been trying not to buy both of them and attempt a transplant.
Scored a yrad sale Sansui Automatic Turntable today and it is sporting a V15 Type IV with a bent stylus on it. What is the best avenue for sourcing a replacement stylus?
Thanks for the heads up! I was really excited when I saw that cart, and then pretty bummed when I stopped down the road a ways to check the stylus...
Resurrecting a year-old thread ... I have a IV with no stylus, purchased at a good price from the evil bay. I inquired of Jico about cantilevers, since zirconium is the only offering for SAS right now, and I was wondering when they might start offering other options again. Here is their reply: ============================================ The details of SAS series are below. ＊SAS/Sapphire stylus ・The material cantilever is Sapphire ・It has a reproduction capacity that every single sound will be bright and clear ＊SAS/Ruby stylus ・The material cantilever is Ruby ・It has a reproduction capacity that every single sound with reverberation ＊Boron SAS stylus ・The material cantilever is boron ・It has a good at reproduction for creating a delicate sound like classical ＊SAS/Zirconia stylus ・The material cantilever is zirconia ・The sounds with powerful low tone, organized sounds in totally We’re grateful if you would choose your favorite one which is suitable on your taste. Please be noted VN45 SAS/Zironica is available on JICO Web Shop, However other 3 SAS stylus are not. We’re planning to restart to take other 3 SAS order around this spring, However the specific date to take SAS order again is undecided. We apologize for any inconvenience we caused. We’ll inform you when SAS stylus will be available on JICO Web Shop. We hope this information will be helpful for you. ===================================================== If only my budget would allow me to buy one of each!
I have two V15V-MR's. One is now fitted with a JICO SAS/Boron. I do not perceive that these carts sound different, much less that one is better, in any manner that better can be discerned. Since I believe these carts get all there is in the groove to get and a tone that seems just right, I no longer have an appetite to spend money on additional carts in pursuit of greater listening pleasure.
I have two V15 III's and one V15 IV. All are equipped with a Jico SAS with boron cantilevers. No more searching for vinyl Nirvana.
Can recommend the V15IV with the little brush. Keeps the LP clean during the spinning. Sound is extraordinary good for all kinds of mudsic. W (Germany)
I'm using a traditional boron SAS with my Shure V15 IV. Anyone tried any of the other cantilevers? I may try ruby next
You will lilely find little to no difference in sound qualty from the V15 III, IV, or V cartridge bodies. IMO any perceived improvement in s0und quality of the IV or V is due more to stylus profile than anything else. Get a V15 III and equip it with a Jico SAS and IMO you'll have the same SQ as a V15 VMR. Pretty sure if you could dissect a III, IV, or V you would find the internals to be identical. I have a V15 III, IV, and V which are all equipped with the Jico SAS and hear no differences at all.
