Denon DL 103 vs DL 103R

Notwithstanding the fact that the 103/103R will not be a good match with the Grace as others have mentioned, there is also, as others have alluded to, something seriously wrong with the setup on Grimace's table.

It would be pretty unlikely that an extracounterweight would be necessary to balance a cartridge that weighs 6 grams; typically extra counterweights are necessary to balance heavier cartridges (as in the plus 8-10 gram category).

Crazy as it sounds, the first thing I would check is to make sure the counterweight is on the right way. Take it off, turn it around and re-install it on the arm, balance the arm to zero and re-set the tracking force and see what happens. Short of that, it might be worth taking the taking the table to someone who really knows table/arm setup to get this thing right. It's pretty likely that Grimace will be much happier when he gets this resolved, possibly to the point of not wanting to do an upgrade as it sounds like something is seriously out of whack with the setup at the moment.

Piedpiper, even if we end up cross posting, we are both trying to help Grimace set up to enjoy music. Anyway, I believe Hdm's last post offered a good summary.

It is apparent that Grimace has a real problem -

"The problem I have with the counterweight is that in order to get the tracking force down below 2g as recommended, I have to really turn the counterweight out pretty far to the point where its hitting the cover"

Moving the counterweight all the way to the rear of the stub, or adding extra weight, does not make sense to me either with a 6.6 gram cartridge. Perhaps getting the friend he borrowed the stylus force gage from to look at his set up could save further posting here.

Yes, there must be a cross in the postings. I put one up early this morning that said, "It's enough to make you reach for a CD." It apparently never made it.

Yeah, I've been through that arm a dozen times and I've always had this same tracking force issue. I even have the cartridge set back a tad in the headshell (although still aligned) to try to compensate for he weight issue. I did re-adjust the weight again last night and am now running it at 1.75g with the brush down, which is within range. I checked the arm too. Without really jamming it, there is no play in the pivit point and this is a fixed head-shell, so I really don't know what to say about it. I may have to look into finding someone who knows something about this arm to take a look at it. It does seem odd that the weight issue would be so pronounced in such a fairly common tonearm.

I suppose its possible the scale is out of whack, but I doubt it. It seems to work fine for its owner. Its a technics SH-50P1. Its a paid to ge the stylus onto the little pin point, but otherwise it seems to be in order. Perhaps I should start a thread just on the arm, since it seems that this issue should be sorted out before addressing the type of cartridge I'm using.