The V15-III's compliance, though, is obviously much greater than that of the Decca Mark V, yet in the same arm, both showed a slight low-frequency rise starting at the same frequency and having about the same amplitude, and the Decca had no trace of the slight heaviness we observed in the Shure. So perhaps we weren't measuring what we were hearing after all. Which is why we depend more on our ears than on our instruments. In any case, the low-end difference noted was slight.
The pickup does have rather high electrical inductance, though, which means it is not going to match all preamps very well. This is not the fault of the pickup design, but of those preamps (and that includes the statistical majority) where input isolation stages were omitted, thus putting the pickup connections right into the equalization feedback path. The result, as we mentioned in the Decca Mark V report, is that the pickup's frequency response will vary rather markedly (mainly above 8kHz) from one preamp to another, even though the preamp may measure as though it has accurate RIAA equalization. The Audio Research SP-3 and Crown IC-150 preamps were found to be okay in this respect, but the schematic for the Citation 11 looks dubious. We were unable to check it out before press time, though, because the preamp stages decided to go on a motorboating binge before we had a chance to do so.
Other Comments
Hum shielding was excellent, making the Shure usable in any good turntable. The pickup is internally damped and thus does not depend on the arm for this. The cleanest treble we got from the Shure was, by a very small margin, with it mounted in a Decca International arm, with a modified Rabco SL-8E running it a close second, but with both of those arms, the bouncing of the woofer cones on apparently modest disc warps (worse with the Rabco) indicated that too much subsonic energy was coming through for most power amps to cope with. Such subsonic interference was at its lowest with the new low-mass SME arms, and the overall sound would probably be cleaner through most systems when those arms are used, but there was a very subtle loss of high-end sweetness. When is Shure going to come out with a properly-damped low-mass arm? Or Decca, for that matter? (The damping "modification" offered by some dealers for the SME arm damps the horizontal pivots only, and may cause even more vertical-pivot problems than previously. We advise against it.)
Although the pickup is damped, it may not suffer from the damping-deterioration that causes most other damped styli to go sour within a few months, for previous-model Shure cartridges have not had that tendency. Only time will confirm this, though. But if Shure can do it, why can't the competition?
Despite its hair-thin armature, the V15-III appears to be quite rugged (barring actual snagging of the armature on something) and trouble-free, and has no hidden idiosyncrasies like magnetic pull, floppy styli, or susceptibility to hum from ground loops or inductive coupling from nearby power transformers, turntable motors, and so on.
One thing we were forced to raise a question about was Shure's almost-legendary quality control. We had heard some reader reports about variability from one V15-III to another, so we sampled a number of the replacement styli from a local dealer's stock. Most of them sounded very similar, but there were audible differences, and a couple were very steely-sounding. We have seen, and been duly impressed by, Shure's production-testing setup, and find it hard to understand how even an occasional deviate could slip by. We suspect that this apparent slackening of quality control does not reflect any change in the way Shure is doing things, but rather that, like the Decca, the V15-III is approaching perfection closely enough that we are more-acutely aware of differences in some aspect of the pickup's performance that is not being measured by the production tests.
Playing 78s
For the benefit of serious recorded-music collectors who still treasure some 78rpm discs'for their performances or historical value, a 78rpm stylus (Number VN-78E) is available. And, would you believe, it's an elliptical. We tried one, and it is excellent, producing some of the cleanest, quietest sound we've ever heard from 78s, at a tracking force low enough (l½–3 grams) to preclude the possibility of groove wear. The 78 stylus also includes an additional 8/10 grams of weighting, making it possible to go from 78 to microgroove stylus without readjusting the tonearm's tracking force each time. Conclusions
In short, this is one of the two best pickups available, and is probably the best for most hi-fi perfectionists. But the Decca still sounds more "alive." Manufacturer's Comment
We appreciate, your observation that the V15-III has the widest separation of any pickup you have tested, but your curve does not show just how good the pickup's separation really is. Typical samples of the V15-III, measured via the CBS STR-100 test record, show separation of more like 28dB through most of the audio range.
Reviewer's Addendum
We re-checked the V15-III's separation using the STR-100 (our original test was with an early STR-130), and measured 29dB throughout the range below 8kHz, which is truly phenomenal. We should point out, though,'that separation figures like that, while admittedly a true reflection of the pickup's potential, may be realized from only a few actual musical recordings, because the cutterheads in commercial use rarely have their modulation axes adjusted precisely to the 45°-45° standard, and it takes only about ½ a degree of inaccuracy to cause a 5dB loss of separation.
Hum shielding was excellent, making the Shure usable in any good turntable. The pickup is internally damped and thus does not depend on the arm for this. The cleanest treble we got from the Shure was, by a very small margin, with it mounted in a Decca International arm, with a modified Rabco SL-8E running it a close second, but with both of those arms, the bouncing of the woofer cones on apparently modest disc warps (worse with the Rabco) indicated that too much subsonic energy was coming through for most power amps to cope with. Such subsonic interference was at its lowest with the new low-mass SME arms, and the overall sound would probably be cleaner through most systems when those arms are used, but there was a very subtle loss of high-end sweetness. When is Shure going to come out with a properly-damped low-mass arm? Or Decca, for that matter? (The damping "modification" offered by some dealers for the SME arm damps the horizontal pivots only, and may cause even more vertical-pivot problems than previously. We advise against it.)
For the benefit of serious recorded-music collectors who still treasure some 78rpm discs'for their performances or historical value, a 78rpm stylus (Number VN-78E) is available. And, would you believe, it's an elliptical. We tried one, and it is excellent, producing some of the cleanest, quietest sound we've ever heard from 78s, at a tracking force low enough (l½–3 grams) to preclude the possibility of groove wear. The 78 stylus also includes an additional 8/10 grams of weighting, making it possible to go from 78 to microgroove stylus without readjusting the tonearm's tracking force each time. Conclusions
In short, this is one of the two best pickups available, and is probably the best for most hi-fi perfectionists. But the Decca still sounds more "alive." Manufacturer's Comment
We appreciate, your observation that the V15-III has the widest separation of any pickup you have tested, but your curve does not show just how good the pickup's separation really is. Typical samples of the V15-III, measured via the CBS STR-100 test record, show separation of more like 28dB through most of the audio range.
We re-checked the V15-III's separation using the STR-100 (our original test was with an early STR-130), and measured 29dB throughout the range below 8kHz, which is truly phenomenal. We should point out, though,'that separation figures like that, while admittedly a true reflection of the pickup's potential, may be realized from only a few actual musical recordings, because the cutterheads in commercial use rarely have their modulation axes adjusted precisely to the 45°-45° standard, and it takes only about ½ a degree of inaccuracy to cause a 5dB loss of separation.
