MAY 1st 2018 UPDATE
Today, Shure officially announced that they are shutting down cart production. Our new story is here, and the official PR is here. Please stop using this FIVE YEAR OLD article as evidence that Shure isn’t stopping production, because they definitely are. Anyway, back to the very old news…
The internet is the best invention in the world ever. I use it more than I use wheels or sliced bread, but there are times when it’s just the worst piece of crap and ill-suited to the power it holds. And for me, it’s the way rumours, half truths and lies get spread. They mutate from something someone heard somewhere into pure fact “because I read it on a forum so it must be true”.
We at DJWORX don’t do rumours. So when we read things that have a potentially huge impact on the DJ community, we get to the root of the rumour, and then get clarification from the source. And I read in a few places yesterday that the iconic Shure M44-7 cart had been discontinued. Ooof – body blow for the turntablist community, especially after losing the Technics 1200 a couple of years ago.
So I spoke with Shure UK and heard back from the Marketing Manager and Managing Director who dug into it a little more on our behalf. Here are the facts:
- Only the M44-7H set (the one mounted in the Technics headshell) has been discontinued.
- The regular unmounted M44-7 is still alive, kicking and in production.
So keep calm. You can keep buying Shure M44-7 carts and spares – they are very much alive and kicking.
By the way, I’ve uploaded the full sized image for you to use as a desktop picture. Just click on the story image and you’ll get the enormous image for you to resize and crop to suit your device.
I hadn’t even heard a rumour! Makes sense about the H’s as Technics parts are drying up.
good to hear it, prices are double now only by fake info :/
That’s one of those rumors that shows it’s head every few years. I clearly remember when the buyer for one of the world’s largest dealers told me they were discontinued a few years ago.
The truth is exsisting carts are inexpensive to make so long as the machinery doesn’t need a major repair.
While we all appreciate the confirmation, the problem is how Shure communicated its message. They placed a DISCONTINUED sign across the picture of the M44-7 on their site – which started this mess. The word “discontinued” has since been removed from the pic and the clarifications have been issued. The rumur wouldn’t have become a torrent of noise if Shure had communicated properly.
Uhh…that headshell is epic. Great picture and thank you for the information because I almost went on a N44-7 shopping spreed.
slightly related topic… kind of surprised that there’s been no mention of Numark discontinuing the TTXUSB.
I mentioned this on Facebook. I checked with Numark and the TTXUSB isn’t official discontinued just yet, but once stocks are gone, it’s unlikely to be replaced. To me that reads as “probably but not officially discontinued”, which isn’t quite the hard facts I like to deal in, especially on such a touchy subject.
Fair call. http://www.elfa.com.au/about-us/latest-news/last-call-for-numarks-ttxusb.html
It’s not discontinued, we still make it, we still sell it, and it still does the job.