advertisement


Calling Tony L and other DL 103 fans

Hey Fatcat, hope I didn't come accross as a vinyl nazi :) It is unlikely that you have done any damage if you failed to move a couple of o-rings. I would still go with an arm removal until you know just how much force they require.

Has your 103R arrived yet?

Very excited here in the U.S. Pick up my 103R tonight!

Adam
 
Adam

I am expecting my DL103 to arrive by the weekend.

I appreciate you trying to curb my enthusiasm for trying to move the weight.

It’s almost as if you know me.

In England we have a saying “If its not broke, don’t fix it”.

My wife has a saying “If its not broke, Frank hasn’t fixed it yet”.
 
ROFL! - Rolls On Floor Laugthing! Think that one is international!

I also understand the need to curb my enthusiasm at times! Better listen carefully to the wife. Last thing I broke was my marriage! :) But that’s a way off topic!

Got my 103R this morning, bolted it in on lunch break, spun a couple quick reference tracks under it, and GRINNED! It will be a while before I write my thoughts (I will give it a week) but I know it is going to be a fun week!

Package came shipped from Japan, the customs label said 'Audio Accessories' and the declared value was $40! I know I lie a bit (I mean 'cautiously' value stuff I send abroad), but $40 is low... Hmm, then again I wonder how much they buy these for wholesale in Japan...

When mounting the cartridge I recommend putting the bolt 'thread end up' and the nut will screw don onto the headshell. Don't try to be clever and do it the other way up, even if for some strange reason it seams 'right' as nuts do not have any flat surfaces on them. This will save you a little time!

While mounting it up, I did put it down on the top of my turntable (which has a steel plate on the top) and the little guy clamped on like a limpet to a rock! Strong magnet. Come the day this cartridge gets trashed or dies, it will make a great fridge magnet!

Thank you all for the recommendation, this is going to be a fun journey.

Adam

Elite Rock with Ittok
Sugden A21
ProAc 1sc's
 
Life is not good with the 103R. It is for sure a fun, upbeat cartridge, but it is too bright in my system! I am running a Sugden A21 with Proac 1sc's which are not bright. I am actually going to point the finger at the Sugden phono board at this time. Or at least a mismatch between cartridge and MC section of the phono board.

I do not know much about cartridge loading etc, but I think this might be it. If I move the jumpers on the Phono board to MM to (experiment) the 103R in that configuration does sound better. i.e more body, warmth, bass... But when set for MC it just SUCKS, and is actually unlistenable for me. I can't of course run it with phono in MM position as the volume has to be too high to play.

I am going to be switching to a Naim Headline type phono stage soon, K or S, and will report on how that works. I think I might also grab one or two phono stages from friends to try this weekend, NAD, CREEK (if I can find MC versions...)

Chilly - did u get yours? how is it?

Adam
 
I do not know much about cartridge loading etc, but I think this might be it. If I move the jumpers on the Phono board to MM to (experiment) the 103R in that configuration does sound better. i.e more body, warmth, bass...
Click to expand...

My Tom Evans Microgroove is factory set to 0.3Mv and 100R (I assume that is Ohms) loading. With this stage the stock 103 sounds very even, quite warm, powerful and full, but still nice and tight in the bass. I did notice the bass end relaxing and getting better as the cart bedded in. When new it was no brighter than the Ortofon MC25FL that preceded it, I'd say it was now a little more laid back. Comparing my Linn to my cheap CD player (which should be flat response wise) shows it to be far weightier, more powerful and simply hugely better all round (which is exactly what I would expect).

What deck and arm do you have? I’d suggest checking the tracking weight, alignment and VTA. Does it sound happy in the groove?

Tony.
 
Originally posted by VTA

Chilly - did u get yours? how is it?

Adam
Click to expand...

Mine arrived Monday. Much less than two weeks, direct from Japan.

And no, I haven't had the time to strip off the MC25FL and bolt the Denon on. It will take time, as this will be the second time in my life that I've fitted a cartridge.

I'm interested that you think it's bright though. I'll look out for that, I may have to get the soldering iron out to change the cartridge load, or tweak the buffer boards.
 
Thanks for the feedback all.

Tony,

I have the 103R in on older Ittock with the original tone arm cable. This is on an Elite rock (without silicone troth at present). I have had this set up for years and am pretty familiar with it. Have also owned an LP12/Aro/Geddon for a couple of years, but don't have this now. Elite is not as warm per se as the Linn (I know this, but I am talking a whole nother realm of cold).

I have run the tracking force from 2 up to 2.8, and no where in there was I able to solve the problem. I did carefully check these weights with 2 gauges, a Sure and the one that came with my ARO.

VTA, is currently set a little low at rear of arm. This helped a little, but it is still a ways off. Tripple checked alignment, and as body is square am very sure I have this ok.

Only info the owners manual for the Sugden gives on the phono is: Input Sensitivity 3mVolts.

It does sound 'happy in the groove' i.e. no distortion, no mistracking. It is very clear and detailed........ actually I feel like I am being bombarded with a wall of sound like would be had from a cheap, late 1980's CD player!

OW!

Adam
 
The Ittok is within acceptable effective mass parameters and is up to the job, it’s arm lead is pretty benign as far as I’m aware and the Rock is a fine deck, so no obvious problems here. The only other thing I can suggest double checking is that the cart wires are right – I’ve got it wrong in the past! Are you absolutely sure left and right are in phase? – this would explain the lack of bass! I read some post on Audio Asylum where someone far preferred the DL-103 with absolute phase reversed (i.e. top headshell leads to bottom / bottom to top) – I’ve not tried this though.

It’s beginning to look likely that you either have a dead 103 or that the loading of the Sugden is way off – the latter surprises me as I don’t think the DL-103 is looking for anything out of the ordinary here. Try [email protected] and find out what the loading of the stage is – they are a really nice friendly crowd at Sugden and will be very helpful (I’ve had the factory tour!).

Tony.
 
Tony, thx for additional pointers.

I did play arround with the cartridge cables and indeed tried reversing phase, no improvement. Incidently I was not able to get the wires to work as desired (as the body is quite long) i.e get left and right channels hooked up to right pins. I ended up hooking left to right and right to left and just switching round the connectors on the end of the tonearm cable (so that left channel did not play out of right speaker and visa versa. I know it sounds suspicious (I just wanted to give full disclosure!) but it should not bear any on sound.

I might, just unscrew the thing and stick it in another system this weekend and see what happens... I can not live with it as it is now! Makes me want to return to the days of MM!

I am hopefull it will get figured out with all of your help, and if not it will make a great fridge magnet!

Adam
 
Hi Adam,
Perhaps due to the different wire used in the R version,it needs more running in than the C version.
There are lot's of people using the cartridge over at Vinyl Asylum.
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/vinyl/bbs.html

Do a search and you will find lot's of info on loading etc.
I find my 103(standard version) to be a bit on the dull side really,and a Dynavector 10X5 I have recently fitted,sound's better to me.......fancy a swop?;)

Paul.
 
Adam

I hope the following is of use.

I fitted my DL103C on Saturday, I set the VTA by adjusting the height of the pillar by the difference in height of the 103 and my old cartridge. I positioned the stylus in the same position as the old cartridge. Sound was fantastic compared to my old cartridge. Spent 3 days happily listening to my favourite records. On Tuesday my wife and daughter asked if I would play some good records instead. They brought out Thriller and a Sting Lp. Thriller was very very bright and Sting had a noticeable sibilance. Tony mentioned sibilance is caused by a positive rake angle. So I lowered the pillar by a millimetre. Sibilance was still there. Lowered it again, still there, another millimetre, still there.
On Wednesday I adjusted the weight from 2.4g to 2.5g, it was still there. The sound now started to get on my nerves, cymbals, snare drums etc seemed to be all I could hear. I convinced myself it was all in my mind. Tonight, dropped the pillar 1 millimetre. No better. Sound was dull and distorted, but could still hear cymbals clear as bells. Checked the weight, spot on. Dropped a further 2 millimetre. Bloody awful. I wondered how much I would get for it on ebay. I then realised that no matter what I did, the sound level of the cymbals could not be reduced. Lowering the pillar was removing the dynamics and sparkle from the midrange. To compensate for this I was turning up the volume and hence the volume of the cymbals etc. I returned the pillar to the original height, and let out a sigh of relief as original sound returned.
Try raising the arm pillar in small increments. I know conventional thought says that raising the pillar makes the sound brighter. But you may find in doing so you will find a sweet spot.

Regards

Fatcat
 
Fatcat, I have indeed been lowering the pillar bit by bit to try and limit the harshness. I will revert to horizontal tonight and see what happens. I will report.

Adam
 
Well, it finally happened. I took the time, like 4 hours, and my shiny, new cartridge is in place. Lord, I hate getting cartridges square!

Thanks to all those who pointed me at that little grub screw holding the pillar plug in place. I dug through my tool boxes and found a key that fitted. A good omen I thought.

Once the arm was out I realised how tight my dealer had set the allen bolts on the MC25FL, not fun. But better that the arm was out of the deck. However, that was nothing to how much I had to bend both the pins on the arm and the pins on the cartridge to get it to fit! Mine you, my dealer had to do that to get the MC25 to fit, I just bent 'em a little further. I did mount the cartridge threads up, with the screw heads pointing down. Nothing like trying to tighten the screws up gripping the 'nuts' with a pair of needle nosed pliers and turn a screw driver oh so close to the needle.

Sound wise, well I'm quite impressed. It's early days yet, but I'm certainly not suffering any brightness. I'll concurr with Tony that my Ortofon was brighter. One thing I have noticed it that I can now 'hear' instruments...hmm difficult to explain, but the sound is the instrument, something I found that the Ortofon couldn't do. I always found the MC25FL very detailed, but not very real if you get my meaning.

I have the VTA just about level. Over the next couple of days I'll try moving the pillar up a little. Tracking is set to 2.5g and anti stake about 1.5g. These are just settings to get me going, more tweaking to come!

One thing I find a little strange is one lifting the cartridge out of the run out groove the arm to swings away from the centre. Doing the same thing in a music groove, towards the centre, the arm lifts straight. Very weird.

Overall I'm impressed, but I hadn't been able to turn the wick up yet and the current listening conditions are still not ideal (very soon to change). For the money I think it's a real bargin. Are you sure it's a conical stylus? ;)

I did run the Denon through my Shure test record. Out of the five tracks (first normal level, second +6db, then +2db each for three to five), only the last two caused any real problem. The Denon didn't mistrack badly, just the sound compressed a little.

More listening to come.
 
Garf

When the stylus is on the run out groove, (which is concentric) the anti skating device is pushing it against the side of the groove towards the outside of the record. This is the only force that is being applied on the stylus. (Except for the force exerted by the side of the groove in resisting motion). When it is lifted out of the groove, there is nothing to resist the anti skating force, so it moves outwards.
When the stylus is in the record groove (which is a spiral). The outer side of the groove is acting like a wedge by pushing the stylus towards the centre. The anti skating force as described above, is pushing outwards. The result is equilibrium.

I agree with you comments concerning hearing more instruments, that where previously unheard, they appear in the background, come and go before you can decide what they are.

I had heard that cheap MC’s are thin sounding, but with this cartridge I found the opposite. I am very impressed by the weight and slam that all instruments exhibit.

I have an HI FI Choice Elite alignment gauge, (Made by Townsend International).
Can somebody please direct me to a webpage that tells me how to use the thing.
 
Fatcat,

Thanks for the answer, make sense to me, but why didn't my old cartridge do this? Could it be to do with the low compliance of the Denon?

I was concerned that the Akito was not the most suited to this cartridge, low to medium weight arm and low compliant cartridge. Doing the maths provided a resonant freq of around 15Hz. Articles I read on the web indicated that I should be looking for 10Hz and lower.

One other thing. Is determining VTA a matter of sight, or is there a way of measuring it accurately?
 
OK, now my 103R is playing as intended, not bright and harsh!

I had been using a Grado on an older Souther Linear Tracking arm. Not a great set up, but it was a fun play and taught me a thing or two about linear arms. I sold the souther to buy a good cartridge and had an older (1st generation Ittok) laying around at work that became mine for a song. It came with what I thought was a stock cable. It actually was a stock cable, but one that someone had converted to BNC's at some time.

I loaded up the Ittok and even mounted the grado for a couple of days. It did not sound great, but I was waiting on my 103R, so just did not listen. The Grado was a $20 job by the way, no top end.

So 103R arrives and it sounded awfull. I revesed phase as Tony suggested, and tried everything else you guys suggested. THANK YOU for the help, It might have been ugly without it!

Anyway, what I did not do was try and compensate for any flaws (I assumed everything other than cartridge was good). So when I thought just for the hell of it of saying, "OK how about Denon making a cartridge with one channel out of phase" (I had preiously changed round cartridge cables to make sure I was not mixing Denons Positive and negative pins).

Voilla! One channel was reversed! ok, ok, no it was not the Denon, closer inspection of the tonearm cable revealed that someone had DIY'd the BNC's onto the tonearm cable and NOT done a very good job.

Wow, This is not a big deal, the cable will be fixed by days end. But what a miserable week it caused!

I did learn that a good MC cartridge out of phase sounds just like a cheap old cd player :)

I also had a bit of a wake up of just how the ear persieves detail. The cartridge now does not sound as detailed as I am not being given a top end emphasized picure. The detail is there and it sounds WAY better. Next time someone says their cartridge has more detail, it might be that it just has a tipped up top end.

Thanks again SO much for your concerns and input.

Adam

NOW, I am going to have some fun.
 
Voilla! One channel was reversed! ok, ok, no it was not the Denon, closer inspection of the tonearm cable revealed that someone had DIY'd the BNC's onto the tonearm cable and NOT done a very good job.
Click to expand...

It would actually be very hard to get the BNCs wrong as the arm cable is coaxial and so is the plug – my guess is that the headshell leads are plugged into the headshell wrong, they are removable in the Ittok so this would be very easy to do by accident, and also to put right.

Tony.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top