Denon DL-103R Wood Body Mod

Dopogue,

So are you playing it nude without housing?

No, I luckily kept the original plastic body and reinstalled it. I thought about "nuding" it and affixing it to the brass plate that is (or was) also promoted as an improvement over the stock Denon, but I'm really happy with the way it sounds now. Dave

Dave Pogue, I'm curious what tonearm you were using to mount the 103 ebony?

Mingles, it was Panzerholz, not ebony. I tried it on three arms -- JMW 10.5,
JMW 10.5i, and (don't laugh) that 12" cherry wood arm sold here on
Audiogon. Unpodded, it's now on the wood tonearm, since I have two other
carts on 10.5i armtubes. I'll probably switch the Denon to one of these
armtubes, one of these days. The Soundsmith retip makes it a great-sounding
cart, but I wasn't playing it much when I had the pod on it. Dave

My experience with the Uwe Panzerholz body was the exact opposite of Dave's above.
I have both Ebony and Panzerholz Uwe bodies and both have enhanced the openness and transparency of the 103R's I've installed in them. Both wooded 103R's sound beautiful IMO. The Panzerholz sounds a little more transparent, cleaner and neutral than the Ebony - perhaps it's a little less 'velvety' sounding, but wonderfully natural.
Both sound very dynamic and alive. The big panoramic 103R staging is enhanced further and imaging is more solid and focussed.
It's perplexing that Dave's experience was so different - but then he was using a SoundSmith retipped 103 where I am using stock 103R's (my arm is the Graham Phantom II).