Time to talk about the Denon 103R MC
Cleaned up and wrapped up my notes while listening to music and putting some hours on the Linton's yesterday. 99% of this is based on 30+ hours with the Omens which were completely broken in. Just as a technical side note, on the Manley the Denon is running at a gain of 65 and load of a 159 ohms.
The one thing that stuck out right from the get go was how dead silent this cart runs, I'm talking BLACK, BLACK, and it has wonderful tracking. I listened to a variety of things and pressings, Dire Straits for the instrumentation, Norah Jones and Natalie Merchant for their voices and pressings (Acoustic Sounds / MoFi), as well as some OGs. In it's most basic observation the Denon handled everything really well, it performed as expected with "audiophile" pressings and elevated OG pressings from the 70's and 80s, it even brought the notorious highs from the 80's back in check. Imagine Boston's self titled album sounding sublime rather than chringy
Describing the Denon is actually very simple in my opinion, it's been the most organic sounding cart I've used. Instruments, voices, guitar plucks and power cords all have a very natural sound and timbre. The upper end of the bass gets a nice bump as well as the lower end of the midrange, this seems to stand out even more on the Linton's if memory serves.
The imaging does seem a hair narrower, very minor at best, but I did notice it from my listening position. Moving back a bit does start to widen that field and fill the room, so there may be a few things at play here, the Omens might have needed a little tweak with the Denon, but since I'm running the Linton's at the moment I'm going to let those simmer in and then see if I can play with the imaging a bit.
The "downside", and there is only 1 in my opinion and that's the non-replaceable stylus. The formula to debate and discuss this point is going to be different for everyone so I'm going to base these comments on where I see this playing out for me. I've always been a "Bang for your Buck" person, so does the Denon bring enough to the table to dethrone the Opus3 at $100 more (
$379 at LP Gear)? Yes, in my opinion the Denon raises the bar on everything across the board enough to justify the cost. This brings us to the cost of wear and tear, what's it going to cost to get this re-tipped? Well, for the Denon I've found it's not such a black and white answer. If you can find a dealer you can get it re-tipped for the cost of the new stylus (I've yet to find this number or dealer), but, Soundsmith does offer re-tipping for non-Soundsmith carts with their styli that starts at $200..........this is an intriguing option, but not without it's drawbacks, the turnaround time.
At the end of the day am I ok with spending about $380 every 12-18 months? I am, the sound quality and reputation of the Denon are well deserved and really have brought the "sound" I've been looking for to my system. I think in the $250-500 price range there are some very solid options to please just about anyone's budget and technical prowess, Being one who wants to "squeeze" everything they can from something and wanting to give an MC cart a go, the Denon seemed inevitable and I'm glad I scratched that itch.
My game plan with the Denon is simple, when the time comes for the stylus I'm going to buy another Denon so I have 2 bodies. When the replacement gets close to its end I'll be sending the Denon to Soundsmith for it's "entry level" replacement and see how that sounds, over time I might go up another rung at Soundsmith if the experiment proves successful, but that's a ways down the line.............and who knows what might pop up in the market
For the time being, the Denon has taken it's place as the "forever" cart based on price and sound. If your pre-amp can handle it I would highly recommend giving the Denon a go, it really does do an amazing job of cleaning up what you thought sounded great and bringing the entire sound field to another level.
............now to finish burning in those Linton's.
