Denon DL-103R Moving Coil Turntable Cartridge, Including Record Player Needle/Stylus for Vinyl Player, 20Hz - 45,000Hz, 14 Ohms, 0.25mV Output - Black

My second DL-110 and still breaking it in, but wow! Thought i'd put on Supertramps Breakfast in America tonight and it prompted me to review the cartridge! It's simply great for the money. Nice warm low end with decent punch, good mids and the highs are sweet - its the best way to describe them. Not brash and in your face nor lacking in any way, just enough sparkle. It seems well balanced and i find it works well with real band music more than electronic. I've had various other cartridges, Ortofon 2M 'silver' (limited edition silver wound coils with red stylus) upgraded that with the Blue stylus - bye bye a lot of IGD, i then upgraded to the Shure M97xe with the infamous JICO stylus which is amazing, it has plenty of attack but can be fatuiging in a bright system such as mine, especially with female vocals, so I tried this cartridge a while back and loved it. I was hearing the tip degrading and muddying up a bit and so instead of putting my Shure back on, I just bought another one! It's that good! The dl-110 has a more laid back presentation, with better stereo imaging and is just more enjoyable to listen to. It puts the vocals in front of you and the instruments are placed around them, as the seperation is brilliant for a cartridge in this price range. It deals with pops and clicks well, it is quiet on silent passages to the point you can hear the original master tape hiss on some recordings! It plays fantastic with old vinyl too, better than my JICO imo. You can certainly put it on a high end deck circa £700 and it will just shine. It tracks like a demon on my RB300 tonearm, i even gave the deck an accidental knock and it didnt skip, maybe luck but still a good sign! It comes in a really nice display box with good instructions it just has quality written all over it. Simply put I LOVE IT on my system which i believe is classed as bright sounding system, so if you have anything similar to mine it should be a good buy... Rega Planar 3 (80s model) with an RB300 tonearm all sat on an SRM Tech Silentbase. I go through the built in phono stage on a Marantz PM6006 Amp into Kef Q100 speakers and a BK XLS-200 sub to fill in the lows. If it helps, I listen to all sorts of music from the Beatles, through to Pink Floyd, Stevie Ray Vaughan, a bit of Soul and Motown to Foo Fighters and all sorts in between, and a bit of Beastie boys thrown in for good measure!

I recently sold my Michell turntable which gave me many years of pleasure. When the gentleman who bought it off a well known auction site came to collect it we got chatting. I told him that I always used the Goldring 1042 cartridge and as much as I loved it this cartridge could be quite unforgiving with old records. He explained that he had been using the Denon DL110 for many years a loved it. The next week I took ownership of a brand new Rega P5 turntable and needed a cartridge for it. I seriously considered the Goldring, the cartridge I am familiar with for many years, but over the years the price has gone up and up to now where it's nearly three hundred pounds. I looked on Amazon and read great reviews about this cartridge. So this and what the gentleman had told me the week before gave me the thinking to ditch the a goldring and get the Denon. Did I do the right thing? I certainly did. I fitted the cartridge to the Rega, which was quite straightforward. Wow! Very impressed indeed. Like most hi fi buffs, I like messing about tweeting this and that. I do agree with other reviews on here that say the ideal weight setting is 1.7gms . I played George Bensons, "Never Give Up On a Good Thing" I was taken back, this wasn't a brand new record but the stylus played it with ease. No serious clicks or crackles, far more forgiving than my old Goldring. I heard vocals I'd never heard before, the stereo separation was fantastic. I went through my large record collection and was never let down with the Denon. I have recently bought a brand new 180gm copy of Wings "Band on The Run" this is a record that is rocky and also very calm and melodic. Once again the Denon sounded great. This is the first time I have had a moving coil cartridge and as moving coils go it is certainly not expensive. It is listed as a high output moving coil. Well this was to me the only grumble if I am being picky. It states the cartridge can be played through the MM setting on the phono stage. It can but I found the output quite low. I then tried it with the MC setting and yes far better. The phono stage I am using is a Musical Fidelty so is reasonably acceptable. I wouldn't let this put you off buying this cartridge it's fantastic. Yes, there are better cartridges out there both moving magnet and moving coil, but certainly not at this price. Buy it you won't be disappointed.

When I replaced my original basic head with this unit I was extremely surprised just what a difference this head would make to my system in improving sound quality and clarity from my vinyl collection. It was so good my friend bought one and he said it was like fitting a £500 unit and he is also very impressed.

DENON DL103R; Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that every piece of hi-fi kit is a compromise when it comes to the reproduction of recorded music; hell, every recording is a compromise. If you want the real thing then go to a concert, and even then - which is the best seat? The Denon 103 (of which the 103R is a variant) is a stereo classic, dating back to 1963 and more or less continuously available to its adoring fans - to the bafflement of its many detractors. The 103 certainly divides opinion, and it’s easy to see why. It presents a series of audio compromises that some just can’t stomach. The drawbacks are easy to enumerate… -It has a conical stylus, which means that, with the best will in the world, it will never be as convincing on those inner grooves as a fine-line, or even bog-standard elliptical. -It’s prone to hum...keep it away from mains transformers -The plastic body is relatively flimsy, making it inadvisable to screw it really tight to the headshell -It needs a high-ish mass arm to really sing -It ideally needs 20-50 hours break-in time to wake up from new It is of course a low output moving coil design, and needs a step-up transformer or a capable phono preamp with at least 60dB of gain. In my system it replaced a Goldring 2040, a great cartridge where the wow factors are detail and sparkle. The Denon doesn’t really compete in either category; there is a noticeable HF roll-off so that subtle triangle “tings” can go missing, and it’s easily confused by dense orchestral passages which are laid bare with X-ray precision by the Goldring. BUT...but… The Denon 103R presents music in such a seductive, involving way. It somehow connects the through-line of the music better than anything I’ve ever heard. Instrumental and vocal lines are rendered with astonishing three-dimensional presence (the best soundstage I’ve heard from any sub-£500 cartridge). It puts you in touch with phrasing and expression like nothing else. Inner voices, especially, are satisfyingly presented (choral altos and orchestral violas benefit hugely) due to the 103R’s legendary mid-range. The bass is just phenomenal, and tuneful. For such a low-compliance cartridge (5 x 10-6 cm/dyne 100Hz), it tracks like a dream at around 2.5g. On rock music, while some “air” is occasionally sucked out, the punch and slam is impressive, it’s tight, it sings, it boogies like no other cartridge in my experience. Is it coloured? Damn right it is. Is there IGD? More like a sort of softening than distortion, but it’s only really objectionable if you, personally, have no soul. You may well hate it (world-respected audiophile guru Michael Fremer is definitely not a fan!) but I have never heard a cartridge remotely like it, and I, personally, love what it does. Whether anyone else will agree I couldn’t possibly hazard a guess!

I am an individual who primarily listens to Music through Vinyl, previous to this cartridge I had been using a Goldring Elektra MM which for the price is a fantastic cartridge and overall really does give excellent sonic reproduction but inevitably I desired more and so I started looking into Moving Coil which lead me ultimately to the Denon DL-110. I had considering other Moving Coil cartridges which included the Audio Technica AT-F7 however the main advantage the DL-110 had over the AT-F7 was the high output which meant I did not have to invest in a separate phono preamp. Ok so how does the DL-110 sound? Well to sum it up; detailed, revealing and dynamic. The DL-110 shows with confidence what a Moving Coil cartridge is capable of doing when it comes to sonic reproduction with Vinyl. Moving Magnet cartridges are amazing for their price as they can be manufactured for a very low price and so are sold with a low price to the end user, however Moving Coil cartridges tend to cost a lot more to manufacturer and so they come with a much higher price but this shows as the DL-110 has managed to create a sound that is very dynamic across the frequency range but at the same being very detailed and revealing, managing to find notes that were just either too quiet for a Moving Magnet cartridge to reproduce. As you can tell I am loving the Denon DL-110 and for the price it is a bargain as the high output it gives means most people with Moving Magnet preamps won't need to invest in a new preamp. Would I suggest people to buy this now? Well that all depends really, if you have the tonearm to take advantage of the DL-110 then go for it but if you are using a relatively budget orientated turntable then in all honesty I would recommend looking at upgrading the turntable or looking at Moving Magnet cartridges from the likes of Goldring, Audio Technica and Grado. My Setup: Goldring GR1.2 With Rega RB250 Tonearm NAD 3020i Stereo Amplifier Sony APM-ES121 Speakers Atacama 7i Speaker Stands OFC 14AWG Speaker Wire

Outstanding performance for the money. I took time to get the overhang, vertical alignment, tracking weight just right and wow I’m really impressed. I have to admit I was sceptical because of the conical stylus but I was proven wrong, this cartridge will extract details and sounds that moving magnet cartridges miss. This is a cartridge that is broadcast quality and was developed in conjunction with NHK of Japan and will make your vinyl sing. It’s a wonderful introduction to the world of moving coil cartridges for not a lot of money which in the world of hifi is a rare thing. Buy with confidence.

Agree with all the other reviews. Mine sounded OK straight out but is without doubt opening up all the time, becoming very natural and just playing the music without highlighting anything. The biggest thing I've noticed is bass is a lot more obvious. It sounds wonderful with guitars. It removed elements of IGD (or whatever else was causing it) I had on a number of my records. It did sound really clear and no nosie to begin with as well although I found it started to pick up dirt quite quickly. I got a vinyl passion polymer gel to dunk the stylus in which has instantly helped return it to no noise and keep it that way. I also have it fitted to a Rega Planer 3. I was replacing an AT95 (which replaced my Linn K9 which I also really loved) and faced the same issue of the old cartridge pins being bigger so I had to slightly close up the arm wires. Pretty fiddly and pretty scary. Also agree the head screws are a bit fiddly and the heads really the wrong way round for easy access the baerwald protractor and the cartridge sits quite far out at the end to get good alignment. I would say the shape of it is a real aid in this part of the setup though. The very square front making it very easy to align correctly. I'm also settling at about 1.8 and I'm trying 1 on the anti skate as I saw this recommended somewhere else. It sounds great though and I couldn't be happier. I would say it also looks sexier than what the picture shows. It looks like a really dull one shade of red plastic. Actually slightly pink red marble look to it. Very happy with the price I got from Analogue Seduction who packaged it well and delivered quickly. All round very happy

I've used the DL110 for about 10 hours and it seems to have settled in fine. So far I've been impressed with its performance. Previous to this cartridge I was using and Ortofon 2M Blue (although I did have a brief spell with a AT95E just to see what it was like for just £25; now fitted to my brother's turntable) which had been an excellent performer so the Denon has quite a hard act to follow. Setting up and alignment was quite easy due to the square edges of the cartridge body (I think other reviews have noted this also). For my turntable (rega planar 3 with various modifications) I decided not to use the small metal spacer weight initially, on the basis I could always add it later should the need arise. The rega arm with Michell Tecnoweight seems to balance fine without the spacer (the tracking weight I am using is 1.8 to 1.9ish). Currently the spacer has not been fitted. I would say that overall the DL110 has a different style and character to the 2M Blue; not better, just different. The mid to high treble is very clean on the DL 110, bass is adequate and appears accurate. I must admit I was a bit worried as to whether the DL110 would be suitable for the rega arm; from the research that I had done on line I could not be totally sure it would be a good match. Now I have lived with it for 10 hours I can say I am more than happy with its performance and enjoying the music it produces. For those that may be interested, turntable modifications are: rega planar 3, new rega 24volt motor upgrade, separate rega power supply, arm rewire, Michell tecnoweight, groove tracer acrylic platter and isokinetik sub platter.