Shure M97xe with SS-78 Stylus?

[Lah Ca]

A Shure M97xe cartridge with a missing stylus tip was just given to me.

My understanding is that the model was Shure's last attempt at making an audiophile cartridges. It was their last top of the line model. Reviews were mixed.

I note that there is an SS-78 stylus available for this model and that it is not too expensive depending upon where you shop. Has any one used a M97xe cartridge with 78s? Comments? Impressions?

Generally, I prefer Stantons and Pickerings for 78s and Microgrooves, but .....

[Dischoard]

That M97XE is for lps. It never occurred to me to try to find a 78 stylus for mine and I own two (once I found they were no longer going to make them I bought a second cart hoping between the two that I have they'd last me a lifetime). I suppose you'd have to try it and let us know. I have all my carts on different heads so I can quickly and easily swap them around. For 78s I have a Grado 78 and a Shure M78. The difference between the two is night and day. The Shure is bright but you certainly hear the shellac hiss. The Grado is more mellow but you lose the highs (including the hiss for better or for worse). I swap them around as my mood allows for a particular listening session...

[Marco Gilardetti]

Well, the M97xE found itself to be the top-of-the-line when the actual top-of-the-line, namely the V15 VxMR model, was discontinued (for reasons that I still have to understand), until in turn it was also discontinued and Shure retired from the pick-up market altogether (another foolish decision if you ask me). Despite not initially intended to be the true "top" from Shure, it is an outstanding pick-up, and I wonder how it could get "mixed" reviews.

However, it doesn't seem to me that the SS-78 is a correct replacement for the M97xE, I believe it is actually for the Shure SC35C pick-up model. Did you read anywhere that it is also compatible with the M97xE?

[Orchorsol]

A couple of points to make here irrespective of Shure and this cartridge in particular.

Firstly, almost all styli available to buy nowadays for discontinued cartridges (including 78 rpm ones) are not of original manufacture. Almost all are inferior to the originals.

Secondly, "standard" off-the-shelf 78 styli do not suit all 78s - typically only fairly late records. To play all 78s well you need various larger than standard sizes and ideally different profiles. It can be expensive depending how far you want to go!

[Marco Gilardetti]

Firstly, almost all styli available to buy nowadays for discontinued cartridges (including 78 rpm ones) are not of original manufacture. Almost all are inferior to the originals.

I have to agree with this, but on the other hand what can we do? Also, when it comes down to 78s, I guess that most aftermarket replacements are "good enough" for the task.

Gauges and retippings were extensively discussed in this old thread, should anyone be interested:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=31331

[Lah Ca]

Well, the M97xE found itself to be the top-of-the-line when the actual top-of-the-line, namely the V15 VxMR model, was discontinued (for reasons that I still have to understand), until in turn it was also discontinued and Shure retired from the pick-up market altogether (another foolish decision if you ask me). Despite not initially intended to be the true "top" from Shure, it is an outstanding pick-up, and I wonder how it could get "mixed" reviews.

However, it doesn't seem to me that the SS-78 is a correct replacement for the M97xE, I believe it is actually for the Shure SC35C pick-up model. Did you read anywhere that it is also compatible with the M97xE?

If you search, you will find that most reviewers agree with you, mostly. The criticisms had to do with coil construction and resultant roll off curve--conclusion: excellent cartridge, especially impressive at its initial MSRP, but of a much lesser nature than Shure's earlier glory models.

I do not believe that Shure ever intended there to be a 78 stylus for the M97xe model. So there is no officially correct stylus. However, that said, here we have from the mouth of Shure, itself:

https://service.shure.com/s/article/78- ... uage=en_US

The N78S replacement stylus worked with these Shure cartridges:

V15VxMR
M97xE (Bold and Italics added by me)
M94E
MP94E
M92E
M70BX
M78S
M111E
M91 Series
M92 Series (Pre 1975)
M35S
M35X
SC35C
M44-7X
M44GX

The N78S stylus, with its 2.5mm spherical tip, has a recommended tracking force of 1.5 to 3 grams, a little light for 78s I would think. My Stantons and Pickerings are 3 to 5 grams.

Esoteric Sound/Rek-O-Kut lists the SS-78 stylus, tracking force 2 to 6 grams, as an option for the M97xe.

I have found Esoteric Sound/Rek-O-Kut to be quite reliable. In correspondence with them about my use of their Stanton 500 series 78 styli in a very old Pickering PAC/1 (a cartridge with a Stanton 500 type body once commonly used in later jukeboxes), a combination I found extremely satisfactory, almost better than with the newer 500s, they replied with interest but stated that they had no PAC/1 body to do tests on, so they would not publicly recommend the use of the PAC/1, not wishing to stand behind something they had not tested and verified for themselves.

[Marco Gilardetti]

The N78S stylus, with its 2.5mm spherical tip, has a recommended tracking force of 1.5 to 3 grams, a little light for 78s I would think. My Stantons and Pickerings are 3 to 5 grams.

Agree in full, and the stylus is also impressively compliant compared to other makes, which leads to frequent mistracking/jumping especially with older records that are often less than perfect. As a matter of fact, the Shure M78S is the only 78 rpm cartridge that I owned and which I ended up reselling. It's "usable", but Stanton/Pickering and Grado are much better suited for the task in my opinion.

If you do what you have in mind, you would basically end up with a M78S "on steroids". Just be aware that you will hit the same tracking weight /compliance issues. Possibly finding a proper replacement and enjoy the M97xE with LPs would be a more satisfactory option.

Curiously, even though I owned both mentioned cartridges, the shape of the styli looked so radically different that it never came to my mind the idea to even try if one stylus would fit the other cartridge.

[Lah Ca]

Possibly finding a proper replacement and enjoy the M97xE with LPs would be a more satisfactory option.

Or not.

I owned one--note the past tense.

I like my Stanton 681eee series cartridges better.

I like my Clear Audio cartridge a whole lot better, but it, too, is way too compliant for its own good with a number of older records.

Undecided. I may just sell or trade the M97xe body.

As for the quality of replacement styli vs OEM brand names ones ... the reason why I got the M97xe body is that the tip and part of the metal in front of the tip fell off the end of cantilever. The owner is someone who is meticulously carefull with their gear and records. The M97xe was not abused. Its original stylus was just poorly made, weak. You can get losers with OEM styluses, too.

[Marco Gilardetti]

I also own a Stanton 681EEE, another peculiar cartridge being possibly the last ever produced of the moving iron class, and as such delivering a sound that I would possibly define as "hystorical" - not for everyone. I enjoy it very much until everything goes... well... perfectly well. But unfortunately we all know that the sound of LPs varies wildly, and there are some that seem to have been mastered/cut by engineers who were possibly born with no ears.

While I happen to enjoy the sound of the Shure M97xE all around, I find it irreplaceable when it comes to records that have unbalanced sound or tracking issues, especially in the high-end of the spectrum. It is an unbelievably forgiving pick-up assembly, it succeedes where almost everything else fails. Its dynamic damper has also been always immensely undervalued by hi-fi magazines and alike, it's unbelievably effective in its simplicity, and again irreplaceable when it comes to decently play records with narrow warps or bents.

In short, these two cartridges sort of complement each other, and in my opinion it's very worth to have them both always ready on a shell.

[Lah Ca]

I also own a Stanton 681EEE, another peculiar cartridge being possibly the last ever produced of the moving iron class, and as such delivering a sound that I would possibly define as "hystorical" - not for everyone.

The 681 series was once the chief rival to Shure's V15 series, the two rival top of the line models.

I found that the 681 had a more neutral sound that did not pair well with cheap speakers. The V15s were warmer and glossier, more in your face. I often compared the differences to those between Henry Kloss, New England style (AR, Advent, KLH, etc) acoustic suspension speakers and JBLs--there is no right/wrong when comes down to personal preferences.

The styli on Stantons also allowed for back-queuing, and the much maligned squirrel hair brush was actually extremely useful for stabilising tracking with difficult records and for keeping dust off the stylus. I once did a listening test with a audiophile who ridiculed the brush, saying it greatly degraded the sound. I swapped out styli, one with brush and one without. He never got things better than chance guessing.

The V15 was a more versatile cartridge in pairing with tone arms, much more forgiving. The 681 needs an old school high mass tone arm to be heard at its best. It did nicely in the old S-curve SME arms.

But unfortunately we all know that the sound of LPs varies wildly, and there are some that seem to have been mastered/cut by engineers who were possibly born with no ears.

Oh, yes ... yes, indeed.

Then there is also the multi-stranded chain from master, to first platings, to secondary masters, to secondary platings for stampers, to your actual record in the pressing run for its stamper. The further your record is away from the original master in first stamper platings, secondary masters, actual stampers, and pressings counts, the worse it will sound. Beginning in the 1970s, Canada became notorious for pressing records badly with companies trying to squeeze every last penny's worth of life out of the production chain, using stampers until they were almost flat. I have a Traffic John Barleycorn Must Die album of that period which I keep as an example. Nothing will track it despite its being perfectly flat. The tonearms will just wander around the record. American records were slightly better. Record stores of the period did brisk business in European and Japanese imports.

Also, if you do not have a vacuum record cleaning machine, I can recommend them highly. Mine is an Okki Nokki which I inherited from a friend who passed away--his wife showed up at the door with it a while after his death. I had been sceptical for about these machines, but my scepticism soon died. For one thing they demonstrated that not all Canadian-made records were awful--many of them just sounded that way. My wife had a Carly Simon record which she was extremely familiar with. I was putting records away one day, heading downstairs to the record library room. She was sitting reading. She asked me if I would put the Carly Simon record on for her. I took it off the shelf and examined it. It was clean-looking, but I decided to clean it before playing it, anyway. I put it on. Part way through, my wife, who is not an audiophile of any kind, suddenly looked startled, put her book down, and said, "That's Paul McCartney singing background vocals." Previously, one could only hear that there were background vocals. After cleaning, fine detail became much clearer. Often the cleaning machine will have no effect whatsoever with records that are excellent pressings or are truly terrible. But when there is an effect it is both profound and subtle.