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).Originally Posted by alfie2902
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
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.
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