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Re: Do Denon DL 103 likes better tail-down or tail-up at the arm ?

I have owned and experimented with 103s for over 20 years. Each one of them (103D, 103R and 103M) seemed better balanced and open when the arm was parallel to the surface or the pivot slightly lower.

When the pivot is raised each of my 103s started suffering from poor bass performance and could not track difficult passages as easily (verified with HFNRR test record earlier this year). When I tried a 103R with the pivot up there was nothing I could do to get it to track the torture bands correctly. VTF and anti-skating had little to no effect. Adjusting the VTA so the arm was parallel dramatically improved its bass response and it tracked all of the four bands on side 1 with just slight mistracking on the last band. I repeated these experiments with my current cartridge, a 103M, and verified the same attributes.

I have my arm set to parallel for standard commercial weight pressings (about 120 - 150 gm) and 200gm pressings sound great with just slightly better bass response. Unless you have a VTA on the fly arm its a trade off anyway.

Ed


I don't know where I'm goin, but I'm goin nowhere in a hurry blues (S Goodman)
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  • Re: Do Denon DL 103 likes better tail-down or tail-up at the arm ? - EdAInWestOC 06:26:16 11/16/04 (0)


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