Question on Denon DL-103 retipping options and preferences

Are you using your 2 stage 2a3 SET amp to make these comparisons. For the record I had a grace f9e for over 20 years a nice polite cartridge. For rock and roll the denon will wipe the floor over the F9E. A grado sonata will beat up a F9e in rock and roll and was never design for that. But maybe you do not own a master tape with rock and roll on it.

Tom, I have many amps, but not a 2a3, if you’re talking about my Yamamoto A-08s SET then my choice of tubes are 45s (not 2a3). I slowly upload images on "my audiogon system page" everyday, but at the moment there are stuff I’ve been using before 2019.

Did I even mention F9? I said I like Grace, but I have nearly all Grace cartridges (in my collection of the best MM) from F8 Custom to F14, including F12, LEVEL II and even a signature Grace Asakura ONE (this is LOMC). If you ever heard about any of them (except for F8 and F9) let me know. The F9E is not the best Grace. There are much better Grace cartridges with LC-OFC coil, Beryllium, Boron, Sapphire, Ceramic cantilevers, LineContact and MicroRidge styli. This is what I like from Grace.

I forgot to ask about the pressing facilities and their equipment. I have 3 different labels for some of my favorite albums . Quess what they all sound different. Do not know which one sounded like the master , but I do have preferences in my system.

I guess your post is trolling.

Ok, I do not have a master tapes at home, but I’m in the music industry for over 25 years and I traveled a lot in pre-covid era, I was taking pictures at some of the best independent analog studios in Europe, the closest is Timmion Records in Helsinki (linked files below are from my 35mm film)

They got tons of vintage studio equipment and instruments (this is hammond organ for example), their live band is The Soul Investigators, this track (recorded in Finland) was in Barack Obama playlist. I

I was in the studio at the recording sessions several times. They got this Neumann cutting lathe with "12 inch SME tonearm and Stanton MM cartridge, this huge Studer multitrack and some other equipment to die for. They cut lacquers (master disks) for many labels, they also cut lacquers for myself. I’ve hear fresh masters before and after pressing (Pallas Pressing plant in Germany - one of the best pressing plants today in Europe). I was an executive producer of 8 records pressed in Detroit on Archer’s pressing plant.

Sorry, I do not listen to rock’n’roll, except maybe for a few The Doors albums, I prefer ’70s Funk & Soul music and related stuff.


*** Regarding MM vs MC and the master tapes, I will post this once again for you to read, maybe you will find names you can trust in quotes from the article below:

Another interesting article in the back issue of TAS (The Analog Sound, Issue 40) magazine called "Assessing the State-of-the-Art in Storage Media". In this, J. Tammblyn Henderson reports on a listening session comparing digital master tape, analogue master tape, direct-to-disc lacquer and the "live" mike feed; the report consists of a long conversation among J.Boyk, Keith Johnson, Doug Sax, and J. Tammblyn Henderson himself.

What cartridge could have the "lowest distortion of all," "uncanny" resolution, better than master tapes?

Kavi Alexander, auteur of the remarkable Water Lily Acoustics series of analogue vinyl discs, is monitoring disc production by comparing test pressings to the master tape. What cartridge is he using? Another moving magnet, this time the TECHNICS EPC 100 mk4. But he describes the AUDIO-TECHNICA AT-ML170 as very similar, and very close to the actual sound of the tape. In this comparison, he says, virtually no moving coil does so well; most have seriously apparent coloration.

The contrast between these views of moving magnet cartridges and usual audiophile opinion is striking. On the one hand, we have assurances from these leaders of the High-End recording industry that the best MOVING MAGNETS are very close to the master tape (or live mic feed, for direct to disc) and that they are capable of "uncanny" resolution. On the other hand, we have the prevailing perception, amounting almost to a shibboleth, of the High-End listening community, that only MOVING COILS are realistic in some sense of that word and that moving magnets are incapable of sonic truth.

As ASP pointed out in TAS (Issue 70), the audiophile consumer and dealer community is massively arrayed against MOVING MAGNETS cartridges. But experimentation is interesting, and in this case inexpensive. If your audiophile friends give you a hard time, you’ll certainly have a pat answer: you can say if it’s good enough for Kavi Alexander, Jim Boyk, and Doug Sax, it’s good enough for me. The AT-ML170 has tip resonance at 40 kHz, and hence response that extends to that frequency at least. Flanders again: "The ear can’t hear as high as that. Still, it ought to please any passing bat." Seriously, though, such ultra-extension does seem to be associated with exceptional top end clarity.

Everyone is entitled to personal tastes, but truth is truth. If you want to hear something like the truth, I still say-no matter what everyone else is using-that you should buy a flat-top cartridge like the AT-ML170 and avoid all MC cartridges with a rising top-end. If the sound of live music is your goal, why would you want to hear a sound which is not only untrue to its source but also is something you are "seldom conscious of live".



**** P.S. I bought all the cartridges from that TAS article and they are all amazing! As I said I like LOMC cartridges too and I have many of them, but I can always recommend an exceptional MM for lower prices than my favorite LOMC cartridges (FR-7fz or FR-7f, Miyabi MCA or Miyabi Standard, Miyajima Kansui ... they are all very expensive). Cheap cartridges like Denon 103 or 103r can’t compete even with cheaper MM, you have to invest another $500-800 to a conical DL103 (and it will be completely refurbished) to make it listenable.

I've had several good experiences with Andy Kim and would recommend his work without reservations. Andy knows good sound and he understands how a cartridge body affects the sound of the cartridge. I think the mod he does for the Dennon DL103 is ingenious.

You can also ask him about other cartridges he might have available for purchase. Sometimes he has one or two that he's rebuilt and they can be excellent value for $.

Ive used both. Contrary to whats been said by another poster; my experience with both with retipping is that they cut the stylus close to the suspension and adhere a new one on. Ive never experience just changing the diamond.

Both retipped Dynavectors for me. Both did good work. Audio memory being as unreliable as it is, my opinion is that retipping is like changing from one good amplifier to another. They wont sound the same as the original, it will be a little different. In each time, I got 97% of what the cartridge sounded like, but its never exactly the same. For 30% of the cost of a new cartridge, Im  cool with that.

i dont have a Denon 103 and havent done any cartridge body mods so I cant comment on those. I’ll tell you this, Andy and Steve have told me what to expect from the work, and theyve been reliable with their advice. Steve is friendlier, Andy is leas chattier. Hope that helps.

What will your budget allow? Since you're an Odyssey owner, check with Klaus for a new cartridge rec that will pair with your rig. The Kismet monos are great deal dollar to performance wise. He usually has great suggestions for upgrades too. 

I ran modified 103R’s for about 5-6 years and about 6000 hours a number of years back before moving on to other (retipped cartridges). The ones that I spend the most time with were in aluminum and ebony bodies (as opposed to "housings" which I take can actually mean a true replacement body or something that actually envelops or wraps around the Denon plastic body, which I would not be inclined to use).

I also had a clavellin bodied 103R, which I definitely did not like as much as either the ebony or the aluminum body, both of which sounded very nice and actually quite similar. By comparison, the clavellin body sounded a bit thin and hi-fi-ish.

The modified 103R’s I used were retipped by Peter L at Soundsmith, two with his standard line contact on ruby cantilever and the other with his top of the line OCL on ruby, which was a bit of a bear to set up, but if properly dialled in would offer just a bit more detail than the standard line contact. Not sure if it was worth the trouble.

As I said above, I’ve moved on to different cartridges in the past 4-5 years and have also had both Andy and Steve L do cartridges for me as well. Andy did a couple of Ortofon MC 20 Supers for me, one with boron/microridge and the other with sapphire/microridge, and he also installed a Namiki cantilever with MR (which I provided) onto an Accuphase AC 2 for me after those Ortofons.

More recently Steve Leung installed a couple Namiki Boron/MR cantilevers which I provided him with onto an AT 33 Mono and a SAEC C1. I wouldn’t hesitate to deal with either Steve or Andy in the future; they both did very good jobs for me, as did Peter at Soundsmith. Andy is the king in turnaround time though in my experience if that matters to you.

In the end, I really liked and preferred my aluminum bodied 103R-the ebony was also very good but I ultimately stripped on of the mounting threads on it, which is the drawback of a wood body without metal threads-that will never happen with an aluminum body.

With my experience with modified Denons, I would not personally want to run one that was partially nuded, and or continues to utilize the Denon plastic body in any way.

And ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that I prefer boron/MR to just about any other combination of cantilever/cartridge out there after running most of them.

So my preference, if I was in the OP’s shoes, would probably be the ebony body (as long is it’s not wrapping around the existing Denon plastic body, which IMO should be removed completely) with a boron MR. Or an aluminum body (they’re often available cheap on Ebay-cheap being in the $60 range) with boron/MR.

Will require a good phonostage, and the Audiomods arm can be beefed up with headshell weights from the manufacturer I believe to increase effective mass into territory that a modified Denon will like.

A properly modified Denon 103R or 103 with a good body and high quality cantilever/stylus is a pretty nice cartridge and does a lot of things well and some things exceptionally. IMO it will probably be extremely competitive with many new cartridges priced into the $1000-$1250 range.

The price of new cartridges has become ridiculous, along with a lot of other audio items, in the past 5 years or so.

For the OP, at $560 for a modified Denon all in with a boron/MR combo, as long as you have the right tone arm and phono stage, it is going to be a very good value and easily good for 1200 hours if handled well and not abused.