The difference between the m447 & m447g is that one is designed for mixing (g) and the other for hip hop. the m447g requires less weight, and the stylus apparently is better biassed for dance music, clearer highs.
I own some m447's and I mix with them, they are great because they rarely skip when cueing, they also have a nice boomy bass response, I also hear they have low record wear, but only time will tell on that one. The stylus for sound quality is also in my price bracket, they cost $40-$50 each.
My only problem with them is that the highs tend to be a tiny bit distorted....good concordes do sound better in the high range, and are more true, and if your mixing with cds it is hard to tell the change of formats.
I change my needles every 9 months or so, and you can usually hear it becuse the high range starts sounding shrill, the mid range muffled, and the low range sounds weak. When this does happen you should change your needles right away, because the stylus which is spherical in shape to begin with is now narrow and sharper. When this happens the grooves take a pounding because the stylus starts scratching against the grooves...bad.
More detail is here:
http://www.audioinvest.no/tt_vinyl/ttv_styl.htm
Concordes come in two types S (spherical) and E (Elleptical). The S and E refer to the shape of the stylus, the spherical is shaped like a 0, and the elleptical is shaped more like this (). Eleptical styli do sound better and track well because they sit lower in the groove, and have more contact with the walls of the groove due to thier shape. The downside here is because of the increased contact, the higher they wear the records due to an increase in friction. Do not consider these is you scratch!
The spherical styli do not sit as deep and generate less wear, but fidelity is lost. Its up to you to decide what your priorities are. Whatever you do dont swap between elleptical and sherical because the constant change in stylus footprint (unavoidable pattern of wear during playback) will eventually mess your grooves up.
At the end of the day it is said that a record can only get 200 plays
, but even taking simple steps like cleaning your records and putting them away out of dust and the elements after play will greatly increase the lifetime.
Yes I am very paranoid about record wear
