Best Cartridge for VPI Aries orig + JMW 10.5 ?

I also have a Helikon (regular..not the SL-and love it) and also a Benz M2. I had a Grado Sonata and it was quite lovely (especially for the price) BUT (and this is MY experience) it developed the famous Grado wobble. I have heard for other here that their Grado worked well on their VPI's or other tables and arms. I just wanted to add this in.

Oh...by the way...I had the Grado wobble on my Linn/Itoch once also........?? I also had previous Grados (ZTL'???) and they worked fine. Go figure????

Art Duddley editor of now defunct mag. Listener, never had been a convert to the VPI camp until he reviewed the Aries-JMW 10 combo. He found out a particuliary good match with the Denon DL 103.
This is a known "classic" that perform beautifully above its price range, (us 300.00) but uneasy to get from Japan.
In using it in the same set-up and I certainelly like it myself, and althought it is a MC cart., its .38 mv output allow me to use the mm only EAR phono stage without problem.
The Dudley's article, is I thinck, available on the VPI site.

I hope you are talking about a DL103D, because a standard DL103 is WAY too stiff for a VPI arm.

Hi ! TWL, I have a few questions, maybe you can tell me?
1) What is the differences between the Denon DL 103 and the DL 103D ?
2) In witch way a cartridge,( DL 103), can be to "stiff" for an arm, (VPI), and what will be the consequences of this less than ideal partnership.
Art Dudley talk about the "love affair" between is "ol fashion" Denon 103 and the arm. Was is cartridge the exact same than mine, Denon DL 103, I dont know, but I dont see a problem when using mine.

Pboutin, the standard DL103 has a compliance rating of 5cu, which is very stiff in the suspension, and actually is the stiffest cartridge in the world, that I know of. The DL103D is a different compliance rating, I think it is 15cu, and is more of a medium compliance cartridge.

The interaction of the cartridge compliance and the tonearm is a fairly important one, which relates to the energy fed into the tonearm by the cartridge suspension as it plays the record. Low compliance(stiff) cartridges feed much more energy into the arm than medium or high compliance ones do. This energy can "push" the arm around, in a microscopic way, and influence the effectiveness of the information retrieval from the grooves. The mass of the tonearm should be selected according to the compliance of the cartridge. This is particularly critical in the horizontal mass component of the arm. Also, in a unipivot, the azimuth may also be affected by this, and be in a constantly changing condition when playing a low compliance cartridge.

In general, I recommend that unipivots be used with medium or higher compliance cartridges, although there are a few unipivots that have some design features that mitigate this somewhat. Arms like the Graham 2.2 have stabilizers which keep the arm a little more stable than other unipivots.

I personally think that the standard DL103 cartridge is much too stiff for a JMW arm, and although it will play the music, I don't think that the best possible performance will be attained with this configuration. I'd recommend a high quality gimbal-bearing tonearm for the DL103. The "ol fashioned" DL103 Art talks about could be either the 103D or the 103, but I think he is referring to the 103D. That is a much better match for the JMW than the standard 103 is.