Just pulled the trigger on one of these babies....

[Marco]

Hi Neal,

Will be interesting to read your thoughts on this one Marco. I was recently looking at these myself before taking the 103D and SA. Its a bit of an odd ball IMHO, it has very low output and very high compliance meaning arm matching may be a bit of an issue. I would have like to have seen it come with a better stylus as well...

Yup, although in terms of a "better stylus", one thing I've learned with experimenting with cartridges, is that the quality of the diamond used, and how its polished is, overall, of more importance than the type of tip fitted, and so a cartridge that has a 'special elliptical' stylus, fitted with a top-notch, 'expertly polished' diamond, can outperform one fitted with a 'posher' stylus and inferior quality diamond.

Therefore, I'm not too concerned about the 'inferior' stylus, especially as I'm sure that Denon would've used a line-contact type, on their 'flagship' cartridge, if they'd felt that in the context of the design it offered a worthwhile advantage. Besides, the best Denon cartridge I've ever heard (the DL-103M) used the same stylus as has been fitted to the DL-S1, so I'm hoping that the latter will be capable of similar magic, especially with the tapered cantilever, the effect of which I'm led to believe is significant.

As for tonearms, I've read good reports about people using the DL-S1 in Linn Ittoks [see here: http://daveyw.edsstuff.org/vinyl/DLS1/], which are simiar in type and mass to my Ortofon, and of course I can experiment with headshells, and optimise things from that point of view, so I'm not really too worried on that score.

Anyway, the proof of the pudding is in the listening, as they say, so we shall see how this particular experiment pans out!

Marco.

[Marco]

Hi Dave,

Yeah, should be a VERY different presentation to the SPU's, meaning the modern ones. 'Twill be fascinating to read your comments Marco

Yup, matey - I wanted to try something that was the polar opposite of my SPU, in terms of design and style of sonic presentation. If it works out how I'm hoping it will, I'll have two superb cartridges that excel in specific areas of music reproduction which are very important to me, depending on the type of music I'm listening to.

Fingers crossed it all works out. It's time that the DL-S1 was a little more well-known on these shores!

Marco.

[Qwin]

[Marco]

That seems to be a rather popular smiley here!

Marco.

[Yomanze]

Ker-ching! - That's a £ in the charity box please

Lol!

[Marco]

Is this an in-joke, amongst daftees, I'm not aware of?

Marco.

[YNWaN]

Its a bit of an odd ball IMHO, it has very low output and very high compliance meaning arm matching may be a bit of an issue. I would have like to have seen it come with a better stylus as well...

Yes, I was surprised to see the output so low (not a bad thing, just means that the phonostage has to be very low noise and relatively high gain) and I was also surprised that it doesn't have a more advanced stylus profile (there seems to be a bit of a fashion for this among some Japanese manufacturers - some Audio-Technicas also).

Edit: Just seen the price - £500 seems very reasonable.

[NRG]

Having just had a 103D rebuilt with a fine line stylus I'm singing its virtues!

[YNWaN]

Of the stylus or the 103D - or both?

[Magna Audio]

Oooh - looks lovely. Should be well engineered and sound different to the SPU.
Look forward to the review.
Variety is the spice of life!