Denon 103r ????

Dear Storyboy: First an only for we are on " stage ": other than my own 103 I already heard other three 103 in my system along two other 103R from friend's of mine, so I know 100% what I'm talking about.

Now, what I'm trying to say is that the 103's are overrated, for its price are ok but nothing more ( at least this is my experience with them ) and IMHO certainly not a " giant killer " like many people think about.
The problem with that, the 103 are over-rated, is that many people, like Pedrillo, are frustrated about because they bought/buy the 103 thinking that they will find a very high quality performance from these cartridges and when they can't well: frustration!!.
In other way if all of us give the 103's very clear its right " place " I can tell you that everybody will be happy, even Pedrillo.

Now, other subject is that my quality cartridge music/sound reproduction level performance is ( for what I see ) very different from yours and from other 103?s lovers.

Btw, from the ones that you own/named ( congratulations for it ) at least the Astrion, Astatic ( both ), the B&O and the great AT-170 in my own experience ( with the right tonearm/load impedance/capacitance/phonolinepreamp ) outperforms the 103's, but like I say it's only in view of my audio priorities that are different against other people.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Richard: With respect to the Zu 103, this is only speculation on my part as I have only experienced a wood bodied 103R, but reading between the lines at vinylasylum I get the impression that those who have experimented with both the wood body and the nude/brass top plate tend, for the most part, to prefer the presentation of the wood to nuding with a metal plate. My take on it is that, although they found the nude/metal plated 103 to be more detailed, they also found it to be a bit hi-fi-ish.

Most of the Denon fans (I believe) are drawn to its midrange and top to bottom coherence-I think the cartridge definitely leans to the warmer side of neutral and the wood body, in my experience, tends to give you more detail and slam without changing the overall impression in quite the same way that it appears nuding or metal bodying the cartridge might. Similar perhaps the sonic differences exhibited by metal and wood footers or support?

At the present, I haven't heard of anyone that has Soundsmithed in a wood body; there's a lot of speculation that might be the killer combo.

Raul, I can see we indeed have different ideas about music/sound repro, so I'll inform you and others from where I speak.

Music has been my love since childhood, both prerecorded and participatory. I play piano, guitar, percussion, trumpet, clarinet, flute, and just about anything I've ever picked up in my hands. I have owned a music store for more than 20 years and built a recording studio in the back to record myself and other people. I design and build my own tube amplification and speakers, and sometimes tweak my setup till I'm dizzy in the head.

I know what a Selmer Mark 6 Tenor sax, Guild D-40 acoustic, or Sabian medium thin 16" crash sounds like because I can walk right over to one and play it or have one of my teachers play it, anytime I want.

And I am fully aware of the limitations and intricacies of prerecorded music, analog or digital.

If I may, I would suggest you review and re-assess your 'audio priorities'.

Just to add another contraversial addition.

Try using the denon 103R with a cartridge man isolator. Works wonders.

I would like to try the wood body from Ure thou. hard to take off the standard body?

Any credance to the guy who said the 103r is phased reversed??

I'm not so sure that the cartridge is actually phase reversed so much as the pin arrangement on the Denons is different from other cartridges possibly resulting in incorrect hookup and phase reversal, but perhaps someone else can shed more light on this.

As to removing the body, this is a fun watch:

http://www.thomas-schick.com/Denon103.htm

It's pretty simple. Tried to post it as a link but had problems.