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That DL-103R that Tubes sent me

Posted by OMalley on September 17, 2006 at 15:04:19

Thanks Jim for sending me that cartridge to have a listen to. It has helped me decide to go to a 304! :-)

I can see what they mean when they say that the DL-103 is a broadcast cartridge. The midrange is all there as one piece - good for broadcast. But there is no peripheral vision! The top end disappears. It's not distorted, it's just not there. Snares on drums loses presence and when things are a pronounced presence in a recording on the top end they come into the midrange but the cartridge does not go out and get them.

All comments are coming from an "on my system" point of view because it can be that the arm was not brought into compliance with the cart. I added enough weight but it looks like from Ed's DB that it dl-103 wants an ibeam for a tonearm. But I think I got it very much in the ballpark that other users are doing. It is a RB250 with 7grams added running with 2.5 VTF. I was also using the Denon AU300LC sut into a Bugle @ 50db/47kohms. [giving the denon supposedly more openness or thin-ness ... but it didn't appear thin in any way]

I have been using a DL-160. In contrast the 160 is more open in that it reaches into the topend much further. But the 160 is thinner thru the mids and there is more space between instruments thru the whole range. This can be interpreted in several ways. I can see why some people say that the 103 is not dynamic or airy because of the way it populates the mids and moves as a piece in that regard.

The dl-103 thickly populates the midrange but it is compressed in that it does not reach far beyond the mids. That is why going to a 304 might be the thing for me. I can see that the 160 is thin in comparison, after changing back, and I wanted some of the mids back. Again, maybe the 304 does this trick.

The DL-1-3 has absolutely no hi-fi tricks at all. I must now admit to a shallowness in liking those things - it adds to the fun. I guess I don't like neutral. The 160 does guitars strings with an over the top vibrato sometimes, and dynamics appear more dramatic in that the 160 reaches so far up. The 160 has a bigger sounds and because it is thinner in the mids it can make moving to the top and bottom more dramatic.

But on the 103, a trumpet has not sounded so good, real weight with the correct sound of air ripple that the 160 overplays with a little sparkle. Voices are real real good, much better. I can see where other's have said that the 103 is the best moving magnet sounding moving coil. It appears exactly that way to me. But one of the things I really liked about going to the dl-110, from listening to only moving magnets previously, was the vast open-ness and sparkly top end. I don't want to lose that.

I really like what the DL-103 does since everyone says that this is a family sound throughout the all the Denon's LOMCs it might be a safe bet going to the 304. I will see.

My preferences are matters of taste balanced against what this cartridge does. I don't think that the 160 is better than the 103 or that the 103 is better than the 160. They both do different things. (I never thought that the 160 was thin but only in comparison to the 103.) Having a listen has made clear the importance of having a listen.

Big thanks again to Tubes for letting me borrow his DL-1-3R.

~Slainte,
The OMalley

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