Brett,
no, have to admit, never had the opportunity to long-term listen to either of them unmodded. The M97 is white map to me, butu will find others having extended exerienece with the M97. All i know is that it is the Shure workhorse and still in production whereas most MM cartridges and their manufacturers have vanished (this being the case, it is probable i acquire one in the near future for try-out).
So there must still be considerable demand for this cart whic i see as a high praise.
I have listened shortly to a V15-V unmodded, boring and undynamic, but i didn't know the system, listening was too short to tell anything..
But i do have experinece with a glued V15-III i had in my system for 9 months (i intended to try it out for one day or so). It already was used when i glued it, thoroghly broken-in
. I liked it so much in its sonic entirety that i played it to death.
And i have about six-hours listening exerience with a glued V15-V, same magic, 2nd best resolution of an MM cart (best i ever had was a glued AT 180ML). However, it had too much treble.
The V15 series were the top segment of Shure and TME unequalled in bench performance. Channel separation was better than other MMs and almost approaching MC level (as always was the case with AudioTechnica MMs), lewset tracking force on the market, very high complicance, unequalled tracking ability. But rumours had it they sounded boring.
The V15-V was thrown in the market as a competitor for MCs of that period and most of those had way too much treble. So the V15-V had to have added sparkle.
The cartridge i am looking after is a NOS sample of the V15-IV, it was flat like a ruler and IMO the best Shure MM cartridge ever made. Make that two samples; i would glue an N78 stylus in the second one for shellac reproduction.
Arms: the V15 series require an ultra light-weight tonearm, (SME3009-III for instance).
Your hunch concerning the generator system could be right, but the generator housings are definitely different, TMK u cannot use the one's stylus/cantilever plug-in for the other.
As i mentioned above, the plug-ins of V15 and M78 are interchangeable, you can turn the unglued V15 into a shellac cartridge by trading plug-ins.
$$$ MCs: There is an awful lot of MCs out there sounding like a welding torch. Get listening experience with one or two of the right-sounding ones, those which backup the fancy rep. Consider, many posters in the big forums yapyap on stuff they have never listened to.
Get a listen with a well-adjusted Lyra Clavis, Koetsu Red Sign. or Urushi, Ortofon Rohmann, Aellaerts, vdHul Kolibri or Grasshopper.
Denon suspensions do not get weak that fast. They should make ten years on the shelf. But in case best-before date is over, try to apply a tiny drop of glycerine on the suspension rubber. Should revive it.
Denon DL103: ultra low compliance (5mN/µm). So you need a heavy arm. not only heavy, also stiff. An SME 3009R will do, but u have to blu-tack coins on the headshell until vertical tonearm resonance of about 10Hz is reached. A FR64S will do mighty fine. A Zeta. Such stuff.
The DL103 is still in production and compared to its sonics, it is dirt-cheap. See my contributions to the Mayware thread, it is possible to DIY a super-heavy unipivot for the DL103. Due to its low compliance, it will happily cooperate with agricultural-maching-style DIYed tonearms most cartridges would die in within hours
Ready, steady, go! )
