Agreed. I’ve used 103s a lot over the past 20 years or so and I honestly think it is happier in the old 3009 or 3012........If I ever go back to MC carts I’d be very tempted by something like the Zu Audio 103.
After googling almost the same question as the OP this thread of course came up and I noticed your comment re the ZU 103.
Very salient as I’m waiting for my 401 to come back from Classic T/T Co in a couple of weeks after a service and was wondering what cart to put on the 3009.
Lo and behold this one was calling me on eBay from upstate New York thus......
“Nice Denon DL 103, Zu Audio Mark II. This is the grade 2 prime version, the highest of their 4 selected grades.
I've listed it as used only because it's not a brand new cartridge, but it's in perfect condition with less than 50 hours on the arm.
Always kept clean and used on machine cleaned records.”
I offered, it was accepted, I paid and shortly after received this courtesy message from the seller about shipping and more......
“Thanks! Your Zu will be posted tomorrow morning.
Don't know if this makes a difference, but it belonged to Art Dudley, who passed away last year.
I'm selling the remainder of his small audio items for the family.”
So that was nice! Sort of meant to be.
RIP Art, gone too soon.
Thanks for the great writing and videos, you live on in many different and informative ways.
Steve