"HELP" tired Koetsu

I will tell you that a really musical cartridge in the very reasonable price range, is the Denon DL103R. I used one of those for several months before getting my Shelter 501, and it is a jewel of a cartridge, for the money. Very similar in character to the Shelter, and very detailed and dynamic, with the "wholeness" in the presentation. I would highly recommend this cartridge to anyone wanting really nice musical sound for very low money. It could stomp on a number of $1k cartridges, with no trouble at all. And it only costs $230.

Twl... The supex line?? If you mean the 900 series you are really old man.[just kidding]

Yes, I'm old and in the way.

Perhaps I have drawn some conclusions about stylus shape and step up devices over my 30 years of fooling with tables and the related parifinalia. I need to find out more.

What is your take on the wood Grado's Twl, just to get a reference point that I know. I assumed that all the damn noise i heard from it was from the stylus shape. This was not there with my old micro ridge/boron coil. I see that the Shelter has an elliptical diamond. That sort of makes me wonder. I loved the EMT and it was of all things conical like the Dennpn 103.

The othe problem I have is(other than being broke)that my record collection needs something( I am boored with most of it too, which is why I got a CD in the first place, and new records are spendy as well). What do you do to keep things quiet? I use a Nitty Gritty but it isn't magic. Perhaps I am just more sensitive to the noise after 3 years of CD listening. I still may bail!

Twl. Is that the current equivalent of the 103c? which was a rather poor tracker even in the FR-64 tonearm.