by Sunbeam » Sat May 12, 2018 11:56 pm
The writing has been on the wall since Shure discontinued the V15-V series, allegedly due to health and safety concerns over processing beryllium for the stylus cantilevers used in those cartridges. They abandoned their high-end flagship years ago.
Meanwhile, there's lots of options remaining from Audio-Technica, Ortofon, Grado, Sumiko, Stanton, and many others, which can provide excellent performance.
David mentions a Stanton model which is excellent for DJ use-- but DJ and "audiophile" requirements can be quite different: for example, the Stanton is made to withstand "back-cueing", which would destroy many of the "more refined" "audiophile" cartridges in short order.
Anyway, JICO still makes replacement stylii for any Shure cartridge you're likely to own, and are by all accounts, of excellent quality. I still have a Shure V15-IV, awaiting a new JICO SAS stylus (which uses a sapphire cantilever) which should make it better than new, it has always been my favourite.
Another American legend bites the dust.