Buddha
Buddha's picture
Offline
Last seen: 12 years 5 months ago
Joined: Sep 8 2005 - 10:24am
Shure V-15 VMR fans? Cult, or religion?
BillB
BillB's picture
Offline
Last seen: 11 years 10 months ago
Joined: Aug 15 2007 - 2:04pm

I recall it being the unobtainable ideal when I could afford only its little brothers. I had a Shure m57 or 75 or something and it served me well.
Now that I can afford a $180 cartridge, the world opens up...
Pls let us know how the shootout goes.

Jan Vigne
Jan Vigne's picture
Offline
Last seen: Never ago
Joined: Mar 18 2006 - 12:57pm

The V15 in all of its iterations was the equivalent of a dry dessert wine. An acquired taste to be sure that is not successful with most dishes. It did, however, track like a mother and that little brush was cute even if it did just dump garbage right in front of the stylus.

If I remember correctly, the V15 was a favorite of JGH.

Buddha
Buddha's picture
Offline
Last seen: 12 years 5 months ago
Joined: Sep 8 2005 - 10:24am

Hey, BillB!

I gotta say, this was maybe the most fun CD / Analog listening comparos of my whole life. If you are into it, grab the LP and CD and you'll have hours of fascination in front of you.

The recording is amazingly good for its time. I feel sad I had to wait all these years to hear it! I'm also amazed hoew great neil was early on - a mature artist at age 24.

Anyway...

Focusing on:

1) A Man Needs a Maid: Both versions with killer headroom, like the dynamics are aying, "We'll stick with you no matter what Neil does."

On the CD, his voice is slightly more baritone, or less tenor, as the case may be.

2) Helpless. Very cool. The LP version has more "air above Neil's voice." Maybe a slightly better sense of a large space on LP than CD. The LP also made his guitar pick up seem more lively. More of an actual live sound. Neil's voice has a little bit of give to it after the first time he sings about the 'yellow moon on the rice.' On the LP, it sounds like it's his voice. On the CD, it makes you wonder if the mic slightly overloaded.

So, LP, better sensation of 'invisible' sound above Neil's voice and better sound of the guitar pick up.

But I'm nitpicking as an audiophile.

The Shure did a good job, slightly besting the new CD toy.

The LP is dead quiet, easily to the level of the tape hiss.

Both recordings are so good, it hurts my feelings less to have missed the show.

Yup, go buy both and we can yack about it!

I'd love to see if anyone else tried both!

Cheers, man.

BillB
BillB's picture
Offline
Last seen: 11 years 10 months ago
Joined: Aug 15 2007 - 2:04pm

Super and descriptive descriptions! I may do a shootout too next week. I can think of only 2 recordings that I have on both LP and CD; Roxy Music's "Avalon" and Santana's "Abraxas" - the latter on hybrid SACD. Stay tuned maybe...

Yesterday I recorded 3 more LP's onto CD-R via my Teac cd recorder. When playing it back on CD (immediately after listening to the vinyl), it's remarkably faithful to the LP, and nicely reproduces its sense of space, etc.

deacongreg
deacongreg's picture
Offline
Last seen: Never ago
Joined: Feb 19 2009 - 10:21am

This brings back very fond memoriesof buying my first turntable in high school at 17, after working all summer long to buy it. A beautiful DUAL 1229, fitted with a Shure V15 TypeIII cartridge. I was so proud of this purchase. Shure cartridges were light, and excellent trackers. Did not hurt your lps.
Never did own the VMR, but hey, a Shure is a Shure. Long live analog!!

Log in or register to post comments
-->
  • X