When my brother first gave me my Gemini PT 2000 II decks, I went online to see what would be the best DJ needle to pair them with. I wanted to scratch and of course the number one cart was the Shure M447. At the time, Shure had recently discontinued making the M447, but companies like Jico were keeping it alive by offering a great stylus to pair with the cart. Since the cart was discontinued, people were charging absurd prices for it so I was starting to thing I might not be able to get a set. One day I went onto Ebay.com and did a search for them and I found a pair from an Ebayer for $68. I couldn’t believe what a steal this was. I proceeded to bid on them and I watched the page for a day waiting for someone to outbid me on them. That bid never came and I snagged two good quality Shure M447s for about $75 shipped. I got really lucky and I’ve kept them ever since. The Shure is a great cart. It rides the grooves of vinyl so tightly it’s almost like a train on a track. You can bump your DJ table and the needles will stay in the groove as long as you have them dialed in properly. The sound is nice and bass heavy which makes it great for hip hop, funk, and house music which are my 3 favorite genres. Although you can’t find the official Shure N447 stylus for a decent price anymore, JICO makes a great replacement that’s just as good if not better than the official stylus. In fact, JICO was able to reverse engineer the entire M447 cart and they’ve released a replica of it. I haven’t been able to get one yet, but as soon as I do I’ll review it on this site. I’m sure it sounds just like the original Shure and has the same great tracking. It definitely looks identical. If you can find a Shure M447 at a reasonable price and you are into playing vinyl or scratching, I highly recommend you grab a set and hold onto them for dear life. Once Jico’s replicas become easier to get, you can probably grab a set of those and get down with them. I’ve tried the Ortofon OM Qberts and the Ortofon VNL, but the Shure carts I keep coming back to. They are just a tried and true DJ cart that you can’t go wrong with.
Shure M447 DJ Cart review
