Get Your Cartridges Out For The Lads 2021

[bob4333]

I think I'll sit this one out. I can't even get on the same page let alone compete!

Sacha's collection goes beyond my imagination and it's all so clean and well photographed.

And Barry has bespoke storage for his cart collection. My few are in a drawer! Oh well.

[Jimbo]

I think I'll sit this out. I can't even get on the same page let alone compete!

Sacha's collection goes beyond my imagination and it's all so clean and well photographed.

And Barry has bespoke storage for his cart collection. My few are in a drawer! Oh well.

I feel a bit like that Bob.

Like your system BTW.

[Jimbo]

Not the best photo but quite a nice cartridge.
Nice original NOS M55
This was great MI cartridge, sad I sold it and sad I have not got better pic!
This was a bit average sounding but great budget MC
DJ Cartidge

[Lurch]

A couple of shots of my rather (very) small collection.
A&R P77Mg, also have a 2nd one of these, but it's out on loan at the moment.
Plain Vanilla A&R P77, complete with original box, outer packaging & often missing stylus guard.
Finally my Transfiguration Axia S.

Sent from my I3312 using Tapatalk

[zimbo]

Ortofon SPU 90th anniversary





best regards
Sascha

[gninnam]

Some great photo's and cartridges - I can't compete with the above but here is a selection of mine in the house:

Goldring Elite MC:




Denon DL-103M:



A&R P77 with Expert Stylus:



A&R P77 with original packaging:



Another P77 stylus tweaked by Expert:



Mono GE RPX-061 (1mill stylus for 33/45) with original box and paper work:





Goldring G800 (I think):




Finally a 78 stylus for an Ortofon OM10 (which is connected to a turntable in the garage):

[Marco]

Hi Jim,

Sorry for the late reply... Been busy elsewhere.

Never heard of the DL-103GL that must be a rare beast. Good pic of the silver Kondo cartridge leads, very tasty. I know from a list of Denon 103 manufacturing I saw a while back they made a huge range of variants of the 103 since they first released it in the 60s many of which probably never made it outside Japan?

It is a cartridge I should still endeavour to try in some form when I plunge back down the MC route.

Yeah, the 103GL (Gold Limited) was introduced in 1990, in a limited production run of 2000, so is fairly rare. I imported a NOS/NIB one from Japan last year.

It has a special glass-fibre black housing (similar to the blue housing used on the subsequently later introduced 103SA). It also has a slightly lower output of 0.25mV, as opposed to the 0.3mV of the stock 103. The real key to its superb sound though, lies in the coils being wound from 4N high-purity gold wire. This imbues music with a clarity and richness unavailable from other 103s, and indeed most other cartridges I've heard at any price!

It really does sound stunning, possessing a level of fine-detail retrieval, 'widescreen' midrange clarity and palpable low-end heft (without flab), largely absent from the stock 103, which in comparison sounds somewhat 'stodgy and opaque'. One of the key things that significantly limits the performance of the stock 103 is its cheap plastic shell, which is where Denon implemented most of their cost cutting.

Therefore, if you're thinking of trying a vintage 103, first of all try and find a NOS one, and go for either a DL-103C1, 103GL or 103SA, as all have improved shells (so less coloration and more detail) and the 'classic', and highly addictive 103 sound. Other notable models, if you fancy something a bit different are the 103D and 103M.

*BUT*, if you want to hear what the former models mentioned are truly capable of, you'll need either an idler or direct-driven T/T (or something with decent torque to combat 'stylus drag' caused by the weight of a heavy headhsell and cartridge, tracking at the optimum 2.7g), fitted with a high-mass arm (or medium-mass arm equipped with a heavy headshell), a good valve MM phono stage, and most importantly a quality SUT or MC head amp. All of that needs to be in place, in order to extract full performance from any low-compliance DL-103 cartridge.

Anyway, if you decide to go down that route, I'd be happy to advise

Marco.

[Jimbo]

I think Kevin had a 103SA and really liked it sometime back and I have had the older 103 variants on my radar for a long time but never commited to buying anything. As I am considering MC cartridges again going forward this year the 103 will definitely be on my list even if its only out of curiousity to listen to this classic cartridge.

[karma67]

I had an SA for a while, very nice cartridge but let down by the conical stylus, I wish I had had it re tipped.
Does anyone know how the 103 SL sits in the ranking?

[gninnam]

I use the 103M and it is a cracker (see pics above) - a cut above your average 103 by miles