@bstatmeister
You will definitely get a better sound with a better MM cartridge. I have the same turntables (they are not my main turntables) and i’ve tried various MM cartridges on that stock Technics tonearm, but my arm has fluid damper and turntable was rewired, also added isonoe footers. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about it, the better cartridge has a better sound - that’s it! Pretty simple, everything starts from the cartridge. The rest you can upgrade later on step by step, but you need a decent cartridge matched to your tonearm. I told you about a guy who just swapped same Shure to a much better Ortofon M20FL Super with Nude Fine Line stylus. It was a very big improvement on the stock Technics with stock wiring etc. The cartridge is the most important thing in the analog chain in my opinion. You can change everything (cables, phono stage, speakers), but if you can’t get the information from the groove walls you will not be able to improve it by anything else. Read about different profiles of the diamond (stylus) and you will find that the best is FineLine (or Line Contact).
Conical profile of DL-103 is a nonsense, that’s the cheapest profile with rolled off bass and treble compared to FineLine or LineContact. That’s why people love to re-tip that stock Denon when they are looking for improvement. It is not the cartridge for your system, especially for your tonearm and phono stage. Forget about it! It’s a waste of money and time. It's oldschool rolled off sound for horn speakers, idler drive turntables and heavy tonearms like Thomas Schick "12.
This is what I was fearing - That it just might not be possible to get better sound than what I currently have
You will definitely get a better sound with a better MM cartridge. I have the same turntables (they are not my main turntables) and i’ve tried various MM cartridges on that stock Technics tonearm, but my arm has fluid damper and turntable was rewired, also added isonoe footers. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about it, the better cartridge has a better sound - that’s it! Pretty simple, everything starts from the cartridge. The rest you can upgrade later on step by step, but you need a decent cartridge matched to your tonearm. I told you about a guy who just swapped same Shure to a much better Ortofon M20FL Super with Nude Fine Line stylus. It was a very big improvement on the stock Technics with stock wiring etc. The cartridge is the most important thing in the analog chain in my opinion. You can change everything (cables, phono stage, speakers), but if you can’t get the information from the groove walls you will not be able to improve it by anything else. Read about different profiles of the diamond (stylus) and you will find that the best is FineLine (or Line Contact).
Conical profile of DL-103 is a nonsense, that’s the cheapest profile with rolled off bass and treble compared to FineLine or LineContact. That’s why people love to re-tip that stock Denon when they are looking for improvement. It is not the cartridge for your system, especially for your tonearm and phono stage. Forget about it! It’s a waste of money and time. It's oldschool rolled off sound for horn speakers, idler drive turntables and heavy tonearms like Thomas Schick "12.