I have an Empire EDR.9, Shure V-15vmr, and Stanton 881s and 981s. They're each excellent but each also excels on a different arm and the strengths and (few) weaknesses of each can be complimented or negated by different phono stages and loading options. I like them all. The 881s is the more 'fun' of the bunch, the EDR.9 has its own moving-iron character that suits many things well, but my favorite of the bunch is the V-15vmr in an SME-V tonearm on my Strathclyde table. I have some fancy LOMCs by Dynavector, Miyabi, Hana, Ortofon, Shelter and others and while I love those as well, the VMR/SME-V combo is just something special indeed. They're also all a bit easier to deal with than the LOMCs, being less picky about arms and they tend to track better with a less than absolutely precise setup. The V-15 especially. Its one of the easiest carts I've ever owned, as far as it just working on whatever I put it on. The brush works magic..do NOT listen to those who say its better with the brush up. That's just dumb audiophile dogma. It was designed with the brush in mind, and it really helps eliminate any arm weight resonance disagreements. I've even ran the thing on an old Empire 990 tonearm, and it tracked perfectly and sounded wonderful (but the SME-V is something else entirely). You can't go wrong with any of these, however. Note that all of mine had either a new old stock or almost-new original stylus.

It's very close between them but for me the Stanton is the winner, which is even more amazing considering it doesn't have a boron or sapphire cantilever (!). THANKS FOR THIS VIDEO!

I was bummed when Shure stopped cartridge production. I bet they're kicking themselves now for exiting the cartridge business.

I liked Stanton and ADC the most. Without overanalyzing this.

I prefer the V15-Type V for its phase coherence and neutrality. The ADC excels at bass weight while the Stanton excels at separation.

The Stanton capsules and the ADC feel much better. A reflection, to think that at that time the sound of a digital recording or anything similar was not used as a reference and yet what a superb sound they offered to our delight. A marvel!

Stanton wins with better bass. Otherwise, Astrion and V15VXMR are on the same level. Empire falls far behind. Great job capturing the sound of these cartridges.

KZfaq's audio compression is not the best, but to my ears the ADC had the clearest mids with the least IM distortion. The Shure was a close second. Listening using an outboard audio interface, a single-ended class-A tube amp of my own design, and JBL L80t's.

It's brilliant - they all sound the same - that's so fantastic and I'm very happy… enjoy the music, everybody!!

Sure M75 Ed then an Empire 600 t . Hearing all my friends Stanton 681eee cartridges I picked up one of those for a hundred bucks and pretty much stuck with that since 1978. But when the Steriohedron stylus came out...the improvement was remarkable. Where did I put all of those styli ? Too bad Stanton didn't hang in for another decade they certainly had a good product. I've got a EL II stylus that I would like to replace before it wares out. At 3 grams that is the next best sounding one to the Steriohedron. I really couldn't believe that they ever stopped making their DJ products because even the conical DJ styli for the 680 are very good thankfully I have one of those with about 20 hours on it. The after market stuff is really hard to sift through...nobody seems to be willing to state specs and origin and the reviews are all over the place. I have an Acutex 315 STR (the light weight one) that's pretty good too but the same problem I can't even find an aftermarket replacement stylus for that at all.

If anyone knew just how GOOD VINYL SOUNDS if cleaned ultrasonically (at least 2 rinse cycles after a heavy cleaning) and then played with ANY OF THESE CARTRIDGES with a HIGH QUALITY EXTERNAL PHONO PREAMP (eg. Lehmann Black Cube SE II) and low capacitace interconnects all over the signal chain (eg. Blue Jeans Cables LC-1) with a properly setup arm (alignment protractor, overhang guage, azimuth guage [Fosgometer with Acoustic Sounds test record], VTA, VTF (use digital scale to confirm 90% of max setting)) JUST HOW THESE BLOW AWAY MANY NEWER DESIGNS !!

ADC is best to my ear

none of these are moving coil either, (one moving iron) yet all stellar carts.

I used a Stanton 500EE it was a dream so smooth sounding pc😊

Stanton and ADC are the best..

What is the tonearm ? Does it favourish the ADC (which is the winner in my opinion) ? Other videos you posted also rank the ADC as a winner : same reason due to the tonearm ?

I was always a Shure fan but never got to the top of the line. I currently have a Cheap Audio Technica and an old Stanton. I don’t know the model number but the stylus is a D70e which is conical. I would like to upgrade it to an elliptical stylus but I find the Stanton numbering system to be very confusing. Also who makes good replacement styli? All of the cartridges sound good here. A better test might be something with a vocal since I find some cartridges display annoying sibilance.

V15. Lacks a bit of color, but still like it best. I need to get the Ultra 500 variant of this, or at least the VST-V.

What is the record name please?

I wonder why the tracking force has gone from 1.5 g ( or slightly less) back to 2.0 g -.... of course simple inflation takes a $200. cart. then to what, $600. now ? my 74 year old ears die out at 8000 hz so I'm not sayin....