Denon DL103 arrives at Tarzan Towers

l have to say firstly, l plonked the cart on my Sumiko headshell( see avatar for rest of system) and tobe honest didn't expect a great deal in given my phono stage ( l borrowed some Ortofon T5's step ups they went in the CA640P's MM input as the MC input has not much gain),fitted the cart to said headshell, a bit of a pain but managed it ok, set the VTF and Anti- skating to 2.5g, lowered the arm on to a record to find the backof the arm with it's arse in the air:scratch:, so put the orginal rubber mat under the Oyaide mat, farted around with arm height and managed to get the arm parallel with the record.


Still with me? Put on arecord, and was suprised how good the cartridge sounded straight off the bat- harshness, no, gain ok, innergroove distortion, no, instead l got a warm, full-bodied and refined sound and this is the hook for me a very balanced, cohesive sound, which makes for loads of listening time without fatigue,

was a bit daunted in the past of buying one of these carts, thinking it a bit of a dark art getting the thing to work, anyway feel free to comment or take the rise, l am going to listen to some more sounds:band:

Sounds good to me , when I tried a 103R I couldn't get it to stop sounding harsh ? It was in an alloy heavy body too , my biggest problem was I had to wind the counter balance almost to the back of my 309 which worried me ? But I could hear something special about this cart though .

Yay! Someone responded! Sounds really refined l am happy suprised you can get this kind of sound for buttons (hifi buttons that is), one thing l have noticed with the cart is how quick music goes, it is LP after LP, you enjoy the sound a lot- Chris you say you had one in a SME 309, could you expand a little more on this? l have an SME V which l will try, a reckon that could wake the SME V up a bit!:)

Interesting cos I'm planning on getting one of these for my SME 3012 :eyebrows: Can I asked how much you paid for yours?? Secondly, have you had a look on the net, this appears to be one classic cart for SME arms, especially SME & garrard 301/401's. There also appears plenty of mods around on the net.

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Originally Posted by Tarzan

Yay! Someone responded! Sounds really refined l am happy suprised you can get this kind of sound for buttons (hifi buttons that is), one thing l have noticed with the cart is how quick music goes, it is LP after LP, you enjoy the sound a lot- Chris you say you had one in a SME 309, could you expand a little more on this? l have an SME V which l will try, a reckon that could wake the SME V up a bit!:)

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I'm informed there is no reason why a 103 shouldn't sing in a 309 ? The V should work just fine I would have thought , I needed a heavier counter weight with the one I tried , not cheap though from SME .

Tweaked already! Put a Stanton plate on the headshell, and extra weight at the back- result subtle improvements all round.:cool:

It certainly a tweaky cart!:)

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Originally Posted by Tarzan

Tweaked already! Put a Stanton plate on the headshell, and extra weight at the back- result subtle improvements all round.:cool:

It certainly a tweaky cart!:)

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Excellent , I'm sure Marco will chime in with some advice , he knows the 103 quite well you know :eyebrows:

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Originally Posted by chris@panteg

Excellent , I'm sure Marco will chime in with some advice , he knows the 103 quite well you know :eyebrows:

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:popcorn::)

I never found the 103 a synergetic(!) match for the SME309, the effective mass is way too low. Slapping on extra spacers and weights is a band aid and compromises arm performance. Its best matched to an arm with a high effective mass out-of-the-box IE Jelco or SME3012 etc. I dont think you'll ever hear it at its best in a low mass arm. Also, loading plays a big part in the presentation, you really need 3x more than the standard 100 Ohm loading of the majority of phono stages....my 2p worth.

That's interesting , I thought the 103 needed a lower impedance ?

But I must admit I'm still struggling to fully understand this ?