Budget MC Suggestions?

I have used the V15VxMR in the past but not on the RB 250 that I have now. It was on a Music Hall with the Pro-ject arm. It really is a very good cartridge. I currently have the 103R that Jphii recommended. It is not broken in yet, neither is the RB 250, but I believe that I can already here a difference with the low compliant Denon. There seems to be more magic and detail, especially in the background.

I have a new V15VxMR in transit, $217 from Beach Audio, so I will be able to give a good side-by-side using the RB250 in a week or two. I'm not familiar with your arm or phono stage so I can't help there. You may want to do some more investigating about your arm before moving to a low compliant MC.

Jphii is right about the change to MCs. I am currently feeding my new addiction to them.

What arm do you have mounted on the Thorens?

The Denon requires at least a very stiff medium or heavy mass tonearm. If it
is a Thorens tonearm I am not sure whether I will work with the low
compliance Denon. However if you have one of the Rega arms I would
certainly recommend the Denon as well.

Enjoy!

Restock is right. In my overzealous pursuit of giving kudos to the 103r, I forgot that your arm has to be able to handle it! Like Dan I ordered a Shure also. SInce they are being discontinued, I figured why not.

See what I mean, once you get started....

Thanks for the help so far. I had to check with Steve at theanalogdept.com to figure out what the stock arm is on my TD-320. It's a TP16-IV. Its effective mass is 12.5 grams. Based on a formula on Steve's site I plugged in the weight of the DL-103 (8.5 g) and the compliance (which if I'm reading internet info correctly is 56 cm) and learned that this arm/cart combo will put my resonant frequency out of the recommended range of 8 - 12 hz. (THIS IS NOW EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT THE SUBJECT!) So, it appears, if these numbers are correct, that the DL-103 would not mate well with my rig. Oh well.

So, there's also been good reviews for the AT-OC9ml/II. I've tried to discover the cart weight and compliance for this cart but have had no luck. Does anyone have that info? Also, will the AT cart give me the same results as the Denon MC cart (vs. my v15vxmr) -- more air, greater detail, just more musicality? Thanks again,
Rich

The AT-OC9/II weighs 8 grams (don't know the value when expressing to tenths of a gram) and has a compliance rating of 9 cu.

I don't know if this cartridge sounds better than the Denon DL-103R but I seem to recall seeing several people post on Audio Asylum that they liked the AT more than the Denon.

I'm pretty sure the AT will put much less wear on your LPs than the DL-103R. The AT-OC9/II uses a microline stylus and recommends 1.25 -1.75 grams of tracking force. The DL-103R uses a conical stylus and requires 2.3 - 2.7 grams tracking force. A conical stylus has a smaller surface area contact with records than elliptical, Shibata, and Fineline styli. Thus, the higher tracking force coupled with smaller surface contact are means the DL-103R is likely to put more wear on your records. I love Denon cartridges but will never try these high tracking force, conical stylus versions because of the potential for excessive record wear.

One counter argument to keep in mind is this: The conical stylus will ride higher in the groove. If wear is more excessive, when it is time to replace the DL-103R, you can then change to an elliptical/fineline/Shibata design which will ride deeper in the groove and probably will bypass some of the wear.

Mr. Kidknow