No. 26 - MM or MC board?

Dear Fernando: The name of Mark Levinson was constructed around their power amplifiers not for their pre-amps and certanelly never for the phono preamp. The 26 is not a good phono preamp. My advise is that you stay aways of that ML 26.

BTW, while you insist with the 103R you will be out of the game named: " analog sound quality reproduction ". You can't do nothing about with that cartridge. Please grow-up, you can do it.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

It may be noted that the early Levinson phono stages were designed by John Curl, and are still sought after by audiophiles, even after 20 years have gone by since they were made. I haven't listened to any of the late model Levinson phono stages, so I can't comment on them.

The DL103R is an excellent cartridge for the money, as long as it is on the right arm(of sufficient mass, rigidity, bearing quality). In the view of many people, this cartridge is superior to many cartridges that cost much more. I've personally heard it embarrass many cartridges that cost over $1k, but this should not be construed to assume that it is a contender for the world's best cartridge, because it is not, and at $250 it's not intended to be. But, it is a great sound for the money, and is well worth the cost. There is a certain "completeness" and "wholeness" to the sound of the 103R that is very compelling. It has a character of sound that IMO is very reminiscent of the Shelter and Koetsu cartridges. I've heard it referred to as a "baby Koetsu" and that is not far off the mark.

TWL: THis one was not Curl design.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Dear Fernando: One of the issues for to have a good quality sound reproduction analog system is to make the less possible mistakes in the audio chain.

Twl told us:**** " The DL103R is an excellent cartridge for the money..."*****, well the Dynavector XV-1 is an exellent cartridge for the money, too. That sentence don't means anything about quality sound reproduction.

For me the 103R is a big mistake for start to build an analog system ( but if you like the 250.00 sound, is up to you ). The ML 26 is another one and if you are thinking of use a step up transformer, then you are commited not only one but three mistakes on a row. So, you will have a heavy degraded sound reproduction of your beloved music.

My advise is that first than all you have to define your targets on the quality sound reproduction of your analog audio system. You have to know what you want.

Think about.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul - I would love to go for something better and more expensive, but to my ears this preamp (ML 26) sounds very nice with my current setup, at my room and with my music. This is a never-ending story of buy-sell-buy iterations.

To move to this preamp will have a marginal cost and a large sonic benefit (for the line stage side), the analog section has a nice presentation, very musical as well.

As for the cartirdge, you know I have had larger and more expensive ones (VdH, Cardas, etc..) my current financial situation asks me to look for a wise investment, the Denon has fullfilled that expectation.

Sure, next step will surely be a better preamp (First Sound, CAT to name just two) and a better cartridge (Shelter, Benz for example).

At this time, I just want to have my current setup in optimal settings.

Fernando