Denon 103r ????

Adjust your VTA to a lower setting (drop the back of the tone arm down) removes the bright edgy sound from the DL103R sound.

With the tome arm too high, you get a bright and thin strident sound with no bass definition at all. Imaging is poor, too. Adjust the cartridge right, and it is one smooth operator. I love mine.

Well, I never could get the 103R to get to really good on my Quatros. Over time, and several records, it always tended to sound slightly closed-in on the midrange and blurry. I switched out to the Accuphase AC-2 I had, and it was WAY better on definition and clarity.

I think that the conical stylus and low low compliance just won't let it happen on my set-up (SME III arm) and is generally better at the low-end based on the shape of the grooves in the record. Yes, the 103R can be better on a heavier arm, but the balance of the cartridge will always bias the low-end...by design.

What I need to do, is find a comparable compliance MC that has the timber of my AC-2. But, where to start?

>>Well, I never could get the 103R to get to really good on my Quatros.<<

Your speakers are irrelevant here. Your tonearm/cartridge match was the problem.

>>I think that the....low low compliance just won't let it happen on my set-up (SME III arm)<<

This is absolutely true. I didn't include your reference to the conical stylus because that's not a factor at all in your observation. The relatively low compliance 103R will not perform even close to its capabilities in your 5 grams effective mass tonearm.

>>...Yes, the 103R can be better on a heavier arm...<<

Make that "will."

>>but the balance of the cartridge will always bias the low-end...by design.<<

This is nonsense. There's no reason one cannot get linear sound and an extended top end from a properly set-up 103R, installed in a tonearm well-matched to its dynamic requirements.

>>What I need to do, is find a comparable compliance MC that has the timber of my AC-2. But, where to start?<<

No. If you get another cartridge with compliance comparable to the 103R, you will again have a gross mismatch between cartridge and tonearm and once again you will malign a perfectly good cartridge by some other maker. Your SME III tonearm requires a distinctly non-comparable compliance, in its case high. Where to start is a much higher compliance and excellent Denon DL-304 or DL-S1. Or just keep listening to your AC-2. The other path to take is to accept the compliance of the 103R and replace your SME III with a tonearm appropriate to that specific Denon.

Phil

"This is nonsense. There's no reason one cannot get linear sound and an extended top end from a properly set-up 103R, installed in a tonearm well-matched to its dynamic requirements."

No, even a well set-up 103R is soft on top. A conical stylus can only do so much. It simply doesn't fit the groove too well. Not to mention the higher stylus pressure conical stylus generate on the groove wall where they do hit. The small contact area has a high PSI so that and 2 grams tracking force is much harder on a record than at first glance against a more modern long contact area stylus. Sure, I can set it to a too high stylus tracking angle like 94 degrees and the distortion will peel the paint off the walls! Is that open high frequency "sound" though? Been there heard it. It gets to be OK with a good, and that's it. The AC-2 works very well (not extremely well) in my SME series III.

Why on earth the silly defense of an admittedly inferior product to the older 103D in overall performance? This product confuses me. OK, they made the thing a nail as everyone went high mass. Does that make it better? Give it a rest, the 103r is mediocer at best in sound quality. It has "value" but I'm more interested in getting to at least "class B" quality sound. I would not put the 103r I heard in that spot. Changing the stylus and complinace on a 103R IS NOT the same product anymore, so I won't go there.

Mine sounds fantastic. Not strident at all, in fact quite the opposite.

Go figure?