Denon DL-S1S - Any views or opinions?

[jandl100]

If you fancy trying another cartridge, and like what the 103 does but want more detail and finesse, I'd thoroughly recommend the 103SA, which you can get for £385 from Ian Harrison in Leicester, or Dave Cawley here will I'm sure match his price

Or £290 from this guy http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Denon-DL103SA-...3A1%7C294%3A50

Actually, my dalliance with the Denon S1 has just made me happy again with my Orty Rondo Bronze!

[Marco]

Now that's an ace price - providing you can be arsed with buying from abroad.

Hey if you're happy with what you've got, Jerry, then that's a result

Marco.

[griffo104]

Very interesting reading Jerry.
Last week a couple of us Wammers met up and had a little bake-off between two decks.

Papa's Voyd Valdi/Helius/Shelter 901 and gains EmmaRoyd's Orbe SE/OL Illustrious (I think)/Lyra Argo (just retipped by ESC - they do some quality work from what I heard last week).

ER has a Whest 20 and after listening to the Orbe for a while we put the Voyd setup on it and it was a little bit of mess, the Shelter 901 did not get on with the Whest phono at all, regardless of what loading we did (I referred it at 47k which is the first time I've said that about any MC).

Swapping the Whest for Papa's Tribute SUT/Puresound P10 made a huge difference. there was, as Marco stated, much more body, bass was much heavier and fuller and textures were very nice albeit the top end sounded a little shut in.

there's obviously not enough loading with the Whest's to suit all MCs, imo. It loves the Argo which likes to run at 100 Ohms - Papa actually thought this is what the Shelter was running at in his setup.

A very interesting evening and that was the biggest shock of all (also as much as I enjoyed the Tribute/P10 on the Orbe SE setup, the extra detail coming from the Argo/Whest combo was also quite a surprise).

[jandl100]

Hi Griffo - yes, based on my experience with the bargain basement WhestTWO phonostage, it does have a very distinctive personality which suits some carts much better than others.

My old Denon 301 mk1 worked well with it, as did the 103 and my present Orty Rondo Bronze. But the Denon S1 was just weak-bodied and uninteresting, although a SUT into its mm stage may well have delivered a more musical sound, but I just didn't want to go dowm that route as I was basically happy with the Rondo anyway.

A 103SA may well be the next cart for me. But I'll stick with the Orty for a while longer, I think.

[Marco]

Hi Griffo,

Some interesting experiences you've related there. I would concur and say that my preference would always be to run an MC cartridge through a (suitably matched) SUT into an all-valve MM phono stage - the results of doing so, to my ears, invariably produce a more musically satisfying result than with any active MC solid-state stages I've heard so far.

Some day, you'll have to hear the 103SA, partnered thus, in my modified SL-1210 to fully 'get' why people like me rave about the Denon, and also the Techy!

Jerry,

If you do decide to go for a 103SA, be sure to give Dave Cawley a shout first, because I think you may find that with your AOS discount and his price matching promise (taking into account possible tax and import duty costs of importing one from abroad), there won't be a hill of beans in the difference in price paid, and he has them in stock (here in the UK) for immediate delivery!

Marco.

[griffo104]

Hi Griffo,

Some interesting experiences you've related there. I would concur and say that my preference would always be to run an MC cartridge through a (suitably matched) SUT into an all-valve MM phono stage - the results of doing so, to my ears, invariably produce a more musically satisfying result than with any active MC solid-state stages I've heard so far.

Some day, you'll have to hear the 103SA, partnered thus, in my modified SL-1210 to fully 'get' why people like me rave about the Denon, and also the Techy!

Marco,

the experience posed more questions than it answered for me. I came away wanting a bit of all of it

I did find the Argo sounded very good through the Tribute/P10, the bass wasn't as weighty as with the Shelter but it was much more nimble and better defined and you got that lift in the treble that the Lyra's have which was tamed slightly by the valve phono - it was a very appealing sound.

However, it did sound a little slow and lacking in detail compared to the Argo/Whest.

Jerry - The Rondo Bronze is a quality cart, I nearly ended up with one myself but for Dorian just had that little bit extra for me. With my experience of Denons (owned 3 now) I would take the Rondo for a better whole picture - the Denons do the midband thing so well though that it does make it difficult to choose.

Another interesting test on the day was comparing a nice new 180g pressing of blonde On blonde against an original one. Huge difference in sound, the 180g version had much more treble and sounded a little harsh in comparision to the original which was warmer at the top end and seemed to be much more natural with it's flow than the new repressing. The repressing was by Sundazed who simply slap the original tape on to nice new vinyl.

Very interesting (although some may say geeky) - it just shows you how many variables are invlolved in vinyl replay - even the vinyl itself.

As for Denon 103SA, I think I may be all denoned out cartwise .

[Marco]

Hi Griffo,

Hey, sounds like you had some fun!

I did find the Argo sounded very good through the Tribute/P10, the bass wasn't as weighty as with the Shelter but it was much more nimble and better defined and you got that lift in the treble that the Lyra's have which was tamed slightly by the valve phono - it was a very appealing sound.

However, it did sound a little slow and lacking in detail compared to the Argo/Whest.

I can't dispute that because I've never carried out this particular comparison. However, what I can say is that there's definitely no lack of detail or anything "slow" about the presentation of the 103SA/A23/Croft valve MM combo - far from it. Like anything else, it's simply a matter of context/synergy

There are simply too many variables in existence to ever come to a completely definitive conclusion about these matters.

The fact is though, you've yet to hear a 103 (of any description) at its best - and the same could probably be said regarding Lyras and me!

Marco.

[blake]

While it's certainly possible that a) there were synergy/system issues with the S1S that Jerry tried out or b) that the S1S is a bit of a lightweight and just not what Jerry was interested in, I have a bit of difficulty with the idea of making a definitive and final judgement on a cartridge that, unless I'm mistaken and not interpreting things correctly, was brand new out of the box and returned with very few hours on it.

I have no experience with the S1S, but all of the 103R's that I've had were not particularly impressive out of the box; rather steely and aggressive, an ok at best midrange that was a bit analytica and anything but smooth and certainly pretty light in the bass. The cartridge(s) seemed to have an almost magical and instant transformation at around the 15 hour mark when the real character of the cartridge came through and the 103R's seem to get steadily and slightly better from there until around the 50 hour mark when I think they are fully broken in.

An AT 120E that I have in use in another system was even worse out of the box and some of the AT's are notorious for longer break in times in the 75-100 hour mark. I've since gone to the Cardas Sweep Record for breaking in cartridges and 2-3 hours on the burn-in tracks seem to be almost the equivalent of 50-75 hours of regular playing.

Unless the first few hours of a cartridge's life are spent on the Cardas, I would not be putting too much emphasis on the evaluation of its sound out of the box, particularly when comparing it to a fully broken in cartridge in good condition with many hours on it. Under conditions like that, I would expect that there would be many cartridges that would not fare too well.

[jandl100]

I have a bit of difficulty with the idea of making a definitive and final judgement on a cartridge that, unless I'm mistaken and not interpreting things correctly, was brand new out of the box and returned with very few hours on it.

That's a fair point on the info I gave, Blake, but in fact I was told that the Denon had quite a few hours on it as a dem model, so it wasn't BNIB.

Anyways, the magnitude of the difference between what I want and what the S1 gave is sufficient that I doubt very much it could have changed enough.

Griffo's comments on my Orty Rondo Bronze are probably sufficient to stop me from looking at new carts for a while - Griffo and I go back a fair ways, hifi-wise, and we have a surprising degree of agreement on hifi matters considering our differences in 'audio philosophy' and musical taste!

.... but maybe a valve phonostage would be worth investigating - I used to own an EAR834 and that was mighty fine ....