Denon DL-103 -- Was it a mistake?

If you are handy with a soldering iron, it's not difficult to add some resistance to a non-adjustable phono input when dealing with MC cartridges. The easiest way is to get a 2 RCA female -> 1 RCA male adapter, and plug that in at your phono input.

Then add resistance with an RCA male plug and resistors in parallel with your load (across + and - on the RCA plug). It's a fairly simple soldering operation. Ideally you would create a few "loading RCA's" so you can swap out resistance to define your needs and determine if, indeed, there is a problem that points to improper loading.

Plug the loading RCAs into one Female input, plug your arm leads into the other. db Systems used to sell a kit of a dozen or so RCAs set up like this with resistance (for MC) and capacitance (for MM).

It might be helpful to check out this url, although it's geared to the specific transformer, which affects the choice of resistor for a given desired loading when using a transformer.

http://www.kandkaudio.com/mccartsetup.html

Vinyl Addict, i had a 2M Black with a Rega RB700 and I currently have a Zu 103R/Wood body 103R on a Thomas Schick tonearm. i'll take the latter. the 2m cartridge is great but did not present the music with the realistic palpability and sonic density as the latter combos. PRaT was the same. Additionally, I tend to think the Dynavector cartridges were better in PRaT than these two Denons but that could be a fallacy encouraged by the Dynas lighter presentation. The sound density of the Dynas is lacking compared to the Ortofons and Denons.

What tonearm did you use? As stated by many others, I think this is a crucial issue.

Gordguide:

This seems like a great idea, but I'm not sure I follow exactly what you are saying. Are you saying that essentially you get an RCA "splitter" for each channel, and in one plug you plug in your cable coming from the TT, and in the other you plug in the loading RCAs?

Also, I assume the "loading plugs" would be male-male, so that you could easily solder both ends of the resistor to the + and - ends of the male plug.

I have had both the 103 and the virtuoso at the same time. They are very different cartridges. I always preferred the virtuoso but that is a matter of taste. It will take you a while to get used to the 103 sound if you were fond of your virtuoso. To get the 103 to sound really good you will have to spend some money on a good sut and then see if you like it with the cambridge. Personally although the 103 is a pretty good unit I think you can do way better for not much money.