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Pete The Cat
12-07-2025, 09:42
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKDtNrN2jy8

This is a pleasant 15 minutes to accompany your morning brew. I'm not sharing it because I have religion over the 103, although I ran one a few years ago and it did an OK job, but instead because of the sense of craftsmanship and dedication that oozes from it - some of these folks have been doing it for decades - even though it's a set of repetitive tasks on a small component that's at the low end of the MC scale. I'm not sure I see many people who care so much about their work these days.

Barry
12-07-2025, 12:22
Fascinating to watch such delicate work required to make electrodynamic cartridges; especially moving coil cartridges.

There were a couple of things which were not clear in the video:
1. How is the polarity of the two coils determined?
and
2. What prevents the ends of each coil from unravelling?

I have a couple of 103 cartridges: one is standard, the second has been 'nuded', that is, has had the outer plastic cover removed. Both have the original conical stylus. They sound fine; which is what you would expect from a cartridge designed for the Japanese state broadcaster.
One day I will try a 103 with an elliptical or fine-line stylus; but since I already have a dozen or so moving coil cartridges by Ortofon, EMT, Van den Hul and Denon, that will be a future project.

Thanks for sharing. :)

Alex_UK
12-07-2025, 12:22
That was awesome, thanks for sharing! I must admit, I didn't appreciate it is a totally handmade process, makes £300 for one seem cheap! I shall check out more of her videos, very enjoyable. :thumbsup:

The Black Adder
02-10-2025, 20:51
I've been using one for years now. I think it's one of the most honest cartridges around. Sounds really great.

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