Denon 103 with a twist

[jonners]

So the upshot of the matter would seem to be, why bother with a re-housed 103?, if 'nuding' a 103 brings about all the benefits that either an aluminium or hardwood housing do, but without the extra expenditure of the later.

I haven't actually compared a nude 103 with an Al or wood housed one. Maybe someone has?

Of course the naked 103 needs to have some way of being attached to the headshell - I glued on a piece of rosewood with two holes drilled in it. I've also added some extra reinforcement around the base of the magnet/yoke assembly using dental cement. That made further improvements to the sound.

[NRG]

I would like to try this but I can't help thinking a nude 103 is an accident waiting to happen...

[REM]

.... I've also added some extra reinforcement around the base of the magnet/yoke assembly using dental cement. That made further improvements to the sound.

The Zu version also has some sort of epoxy or whatever damping applied as well, looks very well made I have to say.

Cheers

[alfie2902]

Marco, if you click on the links quoted in my post (no. 2), you will find:

The Sound Lab 103, fitted in either a rosewood or an ebony body cost 329 Euro (= £282). Either housing alone is 199 Euro (= £170)

Uwe housings alone are 100 Euro (= £86). Uwe offer a choice of Pazerholz, Ironwood, Ebony, African Rosewood (Wenge) and Clavellin (?).

Refer to AoS's resident wood expert for further advice.

I am looking forward to more in-depth reviews of the Zu aluminium housed and Uwe wooden housed 103. Does anyone have any experience of a 'nude' 103, that is one in which the generator has been removed from the plastic housing? I believe there was a post or two somewhere on this.

Regards

I may be wrong about this but my Rosewood 103 is the Sound Lab 103(as the link in post 2) & i am led to believe that this is made by Uwe & is the upgraded model from the 100 Euro earlier ones & now only seem to be offered in rosewood or ebony, There may be other options available though if you spoke with Sound Lab.

A friend of mine had a nuded 103 (now trashed ) & we spent an evening swapping between my standard 103, Rosewood 103 & his nude 103. As time was tight we didn't fine tune each cart & just set them up with VTA level & the same VTF. Firstly we played a few tunes with the standard 103 bolted into my FR64s to get used to the sound to use as a base to compare the others too.

We then swapped in the nude 103 (its glued to a brass headshell weight/spacer) & started to listen & it immediately sounded alot more open & detailed the improvement wasn't subtle after a few more records we both agreed that the treble was a little splahsy & it had lost a little of the 103's solidity & presence, it sounded a little more HiFi. Quite an improvement over the standard 103 though!!

We then swapped in the Rosewood 103 & immediately the solidity, Weight & presence was back & more so than the standard 103 at the slight expense of some detail of the nude 103 but with tighter control. Still more detail than the standard 103, the wooden body just seems to add a little more of everything while keeping the character of the 103 that i like!

With more time to play with VTA fine tuning the results might of been closer, I don't know though. We both prefered the wooden bodied 103.

Makes me wonder if the resonances of some sort of body help a little to tune the 103 to its sound & the better characteristics of the wood over the plastic are what makes the improvement!

Alot of high end carts use wooden bodies, Koetsu for example & others specifically ebony, Benz, Yamamoto because of the resonances of the wood & it does work to improve the 103 somewhat

In the future i intend to nude a 103R & swap it into the Rosewood body it would then be nice to try it along side the 103Pro & 103SA

[jonners]

That's interesting Alfie - just the sort of info I was hoping someone would post.
Maybe one day I'll see about making a wooden body, though I have to say that splashy treble and loss of weight and presence have not been noticeable to me. What load impedance are you using on the output of your AU-300LC I wonder?

[Barry]

I haven't actually compared a nude 103 with an Al or wood housed one. Maybe someone has?

Of course the naked 103 needs to have some way of being attached to the headshell - I glued on a piece of rosewood with two holes drilled in it. I've also added some extra reinforcement around the base of the magnet/yoke assembly using dental cement. That made further improvements to the sound.

Ah! I hadn't realised that the housing of the 103 also provides the location of the 1/2" arm fixings. So, presumably refitting the nude generator of a 103 into an alternative housing always requires the use of some sort of glue/epoxy adhesive. No doubt any errors relative to the fixing holes of the new housing, are within the compass of the 'zero tracking error' adjustment of the arm/headshell.

My only experience of nude pick up generators has been with the Linn Asak and with one of my EMTs. In both cases, removal of the generator from housing retained the fixing locations.

A 'bake off' between a standard issue 103, a nude 103 and a rehoused 103 in an aluminium housing and a hardwood housing would be great - not sure how it could be arranged.

Regards

[Barry]

Alfie,

Thanks for your very interesting post (#24). You seem to be best placed to report on the 'bake off' I suggested. I shall be looking forward to future reports with great interest.

Regards

[blake]

I may be wrong about this but my Rosewood 103 is the Sound Lab 103(as the link in post 2) & i am led to believe that this is made by Uwe & is the upgraded model from the 100 Euro earlier ones & now only seem to be offered in rosewood or ebony, There may be other options available though if you spoke with Sound Lab.

A friend of mine had a nuded 103 (now trashed ) & we spent an evening swapping between my standard 103, Rosewood 103 & his nude 103. As time was tight we didn't fine tune each cart & just set them up with VTA level & the same VTF. Firstly we played a few tunes with the standard 103 bolted into my FR64s to get used to the sound to use as a base to compare the others too.

We then swapped in the nude 103 (its glued to a brass headshell weight/spacer) & started to listen & it immediately sounded alot more open & detailed the improvement wasn't subtle after a few more records we both agreed that the treble was a little splahsy & it had lost a little of the 103's solidity & presence, it sounded a little more HiFi. Quite an improvement over the standard 103 though!!

We then swapped in the Rosewood 103 & immediately the solidity, Weight & presence was back & more so than the standard 103 at the slight expense of some detail of the nude 103 but with tighter control. Still more detail than the standard 103, the wooden body just seems to add a little more of everything while keeping the character of the 103 that i like!

With more time to play with VTA fine tuning the results might of been closer, I don't know though. We both prefered the wooden bodied 103.

Makes me wonder if the resonances of some sort of body help a little to tune the 103 to its sound & the better characteristics of the wood over the plastic are what makes the improvement!

Alot of high end carts use wooden bodies, Koetsu for example & others specifically ebony, Benz, Yamamoto because of the resonances of the wood & it does work to improve the 103 somewhat

In the future i intend to nude a 103R & swap it into the Rosewood body it would then be nice to try it along side the 103Pro & 103SA

Generally speaking, I would say that your findings on sound quality comparing standard, nude and wood bodied 103's are pretty consistent with what I have both read and experienced with Uwe's wood bodies on 103R's (I have no experience with a nude 103R but have used 103R's in Uwe's bodies for about 2years now-a first generation ebony body and a 2nd generation clavellin body).

The aluminum bodied Zu does have some extra work done to it in terms of "potting" the cartridge and this supposedly does further enhance performance-I have not attempted this with my 103R's as there is a real risk to destroying the cartridge). A number of people I believe have reported that the Zu is a bit more of a detail cartridge than the wood bodied Denon with many preferring the overall tonal presentation of the wood body but some still preferring the Zu. A subjective thing I'm sure.

The link below is to a review I wrote of Uwe's ebony body in late '07:

http://www.audioasylum.com/reviews/P...69/694577.html

My personal opinion is that nuding is not a panacea; furthermore, the cartridge is not really "nude". With no body, it must be fixed to some kind of mounting plate-most of the early ones were brass, but wood could also be used and that plate is going to impart a certain sound quality to the modified cartridge. In essence, that is what it is all about.

For example, my ebony 103R (now currently retired and in need of a retip) had a fuller, warmer and slightly less detailed presentation with a more powerful low end than the clavellin 103R I currently use. I'm in the midst of making a decision as to which cartridge to have retipped by Soundsmith (ruby cantilever and line contact stylus) and after corresponding with Uwe am going to send the Ebony body to Soundsmith when the clavellin bodied stylus wears out. The Soundsmith line contact retip combined with the Ebony is supposed to create a killer cartridge providing the best of both worlds-great detail retreival and great tonal balance.

In any event, there is no doubt in my mind that the wood bodies represent a great performance enhancement and value, particularly if one looks at retipping with a more exotic stylus profile further down the road when the conical wears out. It's nice that (in that order) one can do it in smaller increments financially that won't break the bank.

[NRG]

Very interesting Blake, I'm just about to order one of Uwe's bodys for my 103R, not sure what wood to go for but your description of the Clavellin version seems to be what I'm after...should be fun.

[Marco]

Very interesting stuff! I've got a spare stock DL-103, so I may as well have a wood body fitted to that.

Koetsu have been doing this for years, with excellent results, so there's no reason why it shouldn't work on a 103...

It would be nice to have both a DL-103SA and an exotic wood-bodied version with a 'posh' stylus to add to my collection

Marco.

P.S Neal, I've been meaning to mention it for a while, but could you add your location details to your profile? Tar mucho, matey!