This is more of an industry story than a product review...of necessity. You'll also get some feeling of the way magazines like this one have to work. Way back in December, we got a notice from Shure Brothers inviting us out to a press review of a new product. The date for the unveiling was to be February 10th. The letter read that there would be a new test record, but we all assumed that there had to be more. Due to schedule and weather complications, I could not fly from New York to Evanston, IL (Shure's home), but was very interested in the new product and wanted to cover it for this issue of CREEM. I (like most other audio writers) assumed that Shure was going to announce the V-15 Type IV. That did not take much brilliance or intuition on our part. The company flew us out to Evanston several years ago for a similar seminar on the V-15 Type III. However, there were varying ideas of exactly what a V-15 Type IV was going to be.

When it became obvious that I was not going to make the trip to Evanston, someone from CREEM's executive staff called Shure's ad agency to request a sample for this column. (Due to deadlines and lead times, this column is being written in mid-February.)

Indeed, Shure is introducing a V-15 Type IV cartridge. It should be in your local stores right about now. Contrary to one of the rumors, it is not a moving coil design, but a thorough reworking of the V-15 Type III with a few new wrinkles.

The cartridge itself is smaller, but it has more features. The stylus assembly has been redesigned to yield a lower stylus mass, a new bearing system has been developed and the tip itself is a different design.

To the naked eye, the most radical departure is what Shure calls a "Dynamic Stabilizer." It looks like a brush connected to a retractable stylus guard. However, it does more than clean minute particles of dust from a record's grooves... It apparently acts as a stabilizer in the same way a DiscTraker does. Its advantage over a DiscTraker is that it's an integral part and is closer to the stylus. The stabilizer is viscous damped. It also functions as a "lightning rod" to discharge static electricity found on the disc's surface. The brush fibers pick up the electricity and discharge it through the cartridge's ground.

A few days after the phone call to Evanston, the UPS man rang the bell and delivered a package containing four items: a record entitled "Era IV, An Audio Obstacle Course," a Shure stylus force gauge, the Shure V-15 Type IV cartridge—and a loose leaf binder containing close to 100 pages of explanatory text and close to that many drawings, charts and graphs. This was the subject of the seminar. The entire product is truly impressive.

Of course, what I really wanted to get was the cartridge itself and went for it first. My information was correct. The Type IV has the dynamic stabilizer, looking like a miniature paint brush, protruding from the familiar Shure stylus guard. In fact, the stabilizer comes down and forms the stylus guard itself. The plastic bar with the Shure name is merely part of the stylus assembly housing.

The other difference that's noticeable on first glance is the less bulky appearance of the entire cartridge and the newly designed mounting holes. The cartridge body, as you can see from the picture, has a slot at the top. Into this slot you pass a pre-threaded bar and the screws go in from the top of the cartridge shell. It takes less time to mount a Type IV than a Type III.

Those are the external changes. The internal changes, according to Shure, include a new tip design, a new stylus assembly (which itself has a few changes) and the brush—which is more than a cleaner.

Shure calls the V-15 Type IV's tip "hyperelliptical" and they claim (and document) that the new tip will stay in contact with groove walls at lower tracking forces. They also claim (and document) that the reduced tracking force results in longer stylus tip life.

The stylus assembly has a few new features. The shank is telescoping and the magnet and bearing structures are also redesigned.

The dynamic stabilizer is a kind of three-way improvement. It's an anti-dust and anti-static brush, but at the same time it is a stabilizer a la the DiscTraker. Its advantages over outboard systems is that it is inboard. It's closer to the stylus than a DiscTraker can get in most cases and, therefore, more effective as a damper. Having the destaticizing brush as a built-in increases its effectiveness because it can be built into the electrical system of the cartridge through conductive fibers and be tied into the ground. The final dust clearing advantage is one that Shure feels can be pushed too far. The company feels that you should not depend on the dynamic stabilizer to clean your records. The stabilizer brush provides a final sweep, but should not be given the entire burden of keeping your discs dust free.

We felt that a comparison of the Type IV with its progenitor, the Type III, was in order, so we mounted the new cartridge in shell and put it in a turntable very similar in character and specs with the one in which our Type III is normally housed and played the new trackability test record first on one turntable and then on the other. What differences did we hear?

In fact, damn few. The new cartridge does track marginally better than the Type III. There is no question about that, at least to my ears. It is the kind if difference that makes it worth running out and replacing your Type III with a Type IV? I think not. It is a new top end cartridge and if you are in the market for a top end cartridge, it's worth heavy consideration.

That being the case, what does it sound like all by itself and not as part of an A-B test? It has the familiar -mellow, but precise and crisp Shure family sound. Transients are clear and crisp and it tracks and holds even complex and loud passages so that you hear all of what's going on. It is a worthy new top-of-the-line for a company that prides itself on high quality and performance.

☆ ☆ ☆

As excited as I was to finally have the Shure in my hot little hands, perhaps I was more excited about building the new Dynaco PAT 5 Bi-Fet pre-amp (through which I was able to easily audition and compare Types III and IV).

My first audio system, some 20 years ago, was built around Dynakits. Yup, I built 'em and they worked. (In fact, they're still working.) In the intervening years, I've built a number of kits, including Dyna's but I have not sampled this generation Dyna product in kit form. As you will see, the unit itself is unusual and it was with combined excitement and trepidation I pulled the parts from the box and matched them against the parts list.

The specs on the PAT 5 Bi-Fet are extremely good, but it's not for the specs alone that this is a desirable unit. It combines a host of interesting design and control features that make it a real workhorse of a machine. If you're looking for a pre-amp with real versatility, it's definitely worth a look-see in either the kit or factory wired version.

Let's start off with its rear panel. A jack field offers two phono outputs and a toggle switch to assure proper gain for standard or moving coil cartridges. Tuner and two tape inputs are standard and the panel sports a "spare" input for another tuner, tape deck or the audio signal from a TV. When you move to the "output" side, you find some items are unusual. Two amp outputs provide you with a duplicate controlled signal. You can feed another amp or feed an adjusted signal to the tape deck. The standard tape outputs are just that, but there are sets of jacks labelecl E.P.L. IN and E.P.L. OUT. Those are for an external processing unit such as an equalizer or quad decoder. Three switched and one unswitched convenience outlets are also found on the back panel.

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Perhaps the most interesting set of jacks are the 12 binding posts that provide a connection with the amp's output and then connection to two sets of speakers.

Turn the unit around and you find a speaker selector switch which can select one or the other or both sets of speakers. Or, if you prefer, it will turn them both off. Bass and treble controls are independently adjustable for each channel. The controls themselves are unusual with a skewed rather than linear effect. The action is gradual at first, but when you move the controls to extremes, the result is dramatic. Balance control and selector Switch are standard.

Below the selector switch is a pair of buttons controlling the monitor/input functions. They also allow for dubbing from one deck to another. To the right of the Dynaco logo are another six switches. The first two are for output signals. You can mono the signal or you can put either channel through both speakers. Then come the E.P.L. in/out buttons then high and low filter buttons and finally a tone control in/out button. To activate the tone controls, you can depress the button. The is no one standard "loudness" control on the PAT 5. A standard headphone jack and very non-standard power switch complete the front panel. The non-standard feature of the power switch is thatits only function is as an on/off switch for the switched AC outlets on the back panel.. Once plugged in, the PAT 5's circuits remain operating regardless of the power switch position.

Which brings us to another area of the PAT 5's versatility. There are a host of circuit modifications Dynaco includes as options. The first is to wire the power switch to act on the pre-amp itself. While the unit only draws 12 watts, penny/fuel watchers may want to save energy and their cash. Other modifications include rewiring one or both of the phono inputs to accept a microphone. The E.P.L. circuit can be modified to move it to a different location in the overall circuit. If you'd like a little separation rather than full A-B mono, a modification giving you 6 dB is described. There are also instructions for changing the output level at the headphone jack and for wiring it to accept a set of setf-energized electrostatic phones. Another nice modification touch is a chart showing optimum capacities they provide. Instructions are given to optimize your pre-amp to match the cartridge/turntable combination. Now, that's really customization!

The Dynaco PAT 5 Bi-Fet is not an inexpensive item. It lists for $289 in kit form or $449 factory wired. If you want to build the kit just to save the money, forget it. You're looking at between 15 and 20 hours of tedious, painstaking work. If you like the work (and I do), then building a kit is both fun and economic. If you don't, then the likelihood is that it will be neither .

The PAT 5 Bi-Fet comes with four printed circuit boards (two pairs) already assembled and one that you have to put the components on. Most of your work involves mounting switches and wiring them and making connections to the PC boards. The most frustrating and difficult work on the unit is wiring the 6-button control plug. The manual (which is rather well written, as is Dynaco's custom) warns that the switch terminals are the most delicate lugs in the unit. The manual does not lie. Wiring a very small 12-lug switch in a very confined space is a real bear. I wonder how much it would add to the cost of the kit, if Dynaco included a PC board which fit over the switch. The eyelets would get soldered and then connections would be made to the board. The added advantage is it would add strength to the switch itself. That's my only quibble with design.

If you have not built a kit, don't let me scare you off. If you can read English and follow directions (anything from recipes to board games), you can build this kit. It's time consuming, but it's not complicated. You need a few simple tools, a little space and the patience— that's all. (You may also find you like soldering.)

After around 20 hours working evenings, I finished my project and plugged it in. I discovered two problems: the high level (tuner, tape, etc.) inputs worked beautifully and I mean beautifully. But on phono, one channel was dead. The other problem was that the tone control switch was not working properly . This turned out to be the more difficult problem to locate, but it finally turned out to be a solder bridge (my mistake) on one of the PC boards.

The dead channel problem was easy enough -to isolate. Since it was only on the phono (or low level) inputs, the problem was isolated to one PC board. After going through the wiring and finding nothing amiss, a close examination of the board showed a transistor with a broken lead. Dynaco maintains a Technical Services Department and a check with them revealed the possibility of the defective transistors' on the board. A simple replacement of one transistor did not do the job. I encountered a further problem. I also found myself stymied from the time the manual was produced. (The basic circuits for PAT 5 are several years old and modifications have been made. While the company makes sure that instruction for changes we must perform are included, the manual's schematics have not caught up with the engineers.) Not sure where to go now, I got in touch with Dynaco and they suggested replacement of all four transistors on the pair of low level boards. That did it. I replaced the transistors and the PAT 5 Bi-Fet worked like a charm.

How does it sound? Very, very clean. There is a significant difference in the quality of sound as I have been hearing it. The difference is real and audible (or should it be inaudible?). Despite the rather frustrating last stages of the project, the end result is quite impressive.

The Dynaco PAT Bi-Fet kit confirmed my feelings about Dynaco. The product is well designed and the kits well put together. Transistors fail and can get damaged in shipping. It happens. But the unit is straightforward and relatively easy to build. My memory of Dynaco and Dynakits is intact. A responsible, quality product that is not engineered for one year to be superceded by another model. Dynaco's philosophy remains one of designing a unit and then refining it over a period of years. The PAT 5 Bi-Fet reflects that philosophy (it has been refined to a point where the manual needs a real update). It's been improved as problems, has shown themselves and it's a better unit because of those revisions. As I said, Dynaco goes, back to my earliest interest in audio gear and proves that sometimes you can go home again.