The Great Denon DL103 Debate...

[bong]

Since this IS turning into quite the 103 tribute thread ...

I'll let pictures do the talking for something that happened last week ...





Is there any recourse? or is a new cart inevitable?

[Marco]

Try some Sellotape?

No, more seriously, it's a new cartridge I'm afraid Kelvin

Who's your nearest Denon dealer? Normally there is an exchange price available, which is about 20% off the cost of a new cartridge. All you do is send your damaged one off and the dealer orders a new one for you at the discounted price. Denon recycle the damaged item.

I can recommend a few who operate this policy, but unfortunately they're all in the UK.

Marco.

[NRG]

No that's dead, time to buy a Goldring...

[Marco]

Hehe...not forgetting the Anadin

Marco.

[bong]

Try some Sellotape?

No, more seriously, it's a new cartridge I'm afraid Kelvin

heh .. no worries. that's pretty much what i expected. that's taught me to be really focused when anywhere near my TT. the bent cantilever was the result of an unfortunate accident when I was being a bit too enthusiastic about trying to clean my stylus with a Zerodust.

Who's your nearest Denon dealer? Normally there is an exchange price available, which is about 20% off the cost of a new cartridge. All you do is send your damaged one off and the dealer orders a new one for you at the discounted price. Denon recycle the damaged item.

I can recommend a few who operate this policy, but unfortunately they're all in the UK.

Marco.

thanks for the offer, but I bought this cartridge during an earlier trip to tokyo. also, Denon here doesn't bring in any turntables or its associated accessories; we're considered quite a small market for TTs. Most if not all of the Denon carts here are imported.

[bong]

No that's dead, time to buy a Goldring...

well, i guessed as much that it's dead. but i also got quite a good deal on the 103R on the same trip to Tokyo, so it's as good a time as any to give the new cart a go. But I invested in Doc Feickert's alignment tool, and figured that the 103s weren't getting a proper fit on the stock technics headshell, so I put in an order for the lpgear zupreme. while this was happening, I had brass counterweights and a couple of mats coming in that I could experiment with on my table too ...

all I can say was that the wait seemed a lot longer that it probably was ...

[Marco]

but i also got quite a good deal on the 103R on the same trip to Tokyo, so it's as good a time as any to give the new cart a go.

Be more bloody careful this time with this one, then!

Good luck, and keep us posted on how it sounds when everything is up and running

Marco.

[bong]

Be more bloody careful this time with this one, then!

Good luck, and keep us posted on how it sounds when everything is up and running

Marco.

definitely! live and learn ... i must say. well, i do have a AT33PTG waiting in the wings, but that's no bloody excuse for me to wreck another cart just to get to it!

anyway, the zupreme headshell, counterweights and mats all arrived in the last couple of days, and I finally had sometime yesterday to fix everything up. which led to a couple of questions ..

1) i was using feickert's to align the cart, and after setting the pivot to spindle length of 215mm, i used the baerwald null points to align the cart properly. after sorting that out, i got curious and flipped over the disc to the lofgren null points, and found that it was perfectly aligned for those points as well. i never quite understood the difference between the two sets of points, but i recall reading that they were at different distances, therefore I assume that to get from one to the other, I would need to at least change something. Am I doing something wrong in the setup?

2) also, I'm now using the zupreme headshell and it gives a nice solid build to the headshell/cart combo. however, to achieve the 2.5g vtf, i've had to move the bigger CW quite far back to balance, and the smaller piece is not used at all. i guess the only way that both pieces will be in action at the same time is for a vtf of 2 or less. would this be correct?

well, enough with the questions .. i'm currently running in the cart, and will hopefully be able to give some impressions of the 103R, together with experiments with the mats soon. it already sounds quite good out of the box, and i can't wait to give it about 20-30hrs.

here's some pictures of the setup as it stands ...


the 103R/zupreme combo. sweet!




the complete tonearm with CW


and finally, the obligatory low light TT porn shot ...

[Marco]

Great pics, Kelvin!

I don't really have the time to reply in detail in the moment, but one thing strikes me straight away... Which cartridge alignment tool did you use? It looks like you've got the cartridge much too forward in the headshell. From experience, I can tell that it's not right.

Try moving the cartridge back until, when looking down at it from the top of the headshell the cartridge overlaps the front of the headshell by about 1mm. Without an alignment protractor you won't get this spot on, but that's roughly where the 103 should be positioned in the headshell when used on the Technics arm.

Try that and see if it sounds any better

Marco.

[bong]

Great pics, Kelvin!

I don't really have the time to reply in detail in the moment, but one thing strikes me straight away... Which cartridge alignment tool did you use? It looks like you've got the cartridge much too forward in the headshell. From experience, I can tell that it's not right.

This is what i'm using for alignment. I used the same tool, with the baerwald null points to align my earlier 103, and that's where i found the technics headshell to be deficient, as the 103 needed to be a lot more forward than the headshell could allow.

Try moving the cartridge back until, when looking down at it from the top of the headshell the cartridge overlaps the front of the headshell by about 1mm. Without an alignment protractor you won't get this spot on, but that's roughly where the 103 should be positioned in the headshell when used on the Technics arm.

Try that and see if it sounds any better

Marco.

the 1mm overlap that you've recommended would correspond roughly to the 52mm overhang that the technics overhang tool would give. however, i've found this to be a bit inaccurate for alignment purposes, so I'm using the protractor above. i've tried setting up a cart with the technics tool and the protractor, and the setup via protractor sounds a LOT better.