need some help with Denon DL-103r OR Suggest a different cartridge

Add weight to the head shell.  Brass works well.  Get a SUT for sure.  It is a top tier cartridge regardless of price.  If set up correctly, it will bogie and sound like real music.

Enjoy the ride
Tom

@tomwh do you want to make a truck out of sport car ?
Lighweight toneam designed for High Compliance cartridges, not for heavy low compliance Denon DL-103 monster from the 60’s which must be used on tonearms like Fidelity-Research with 35g effective mass ! Moerch toneam effective mass is 4g, can you imagine that? I think you have no idea what you’re talking about here.

Most LOMC cartridges are better without SUT but with an active headamp or with a proper phono stage with high gain (like the Gold Note PH-10 for example), why anyone have to buy a SUT for oldschool cartridge with conical stylus if this cartridge can’t extract information from the groove walls because the contact area of the conical stylus is very small ? Read here about diamond profiles. How can a SUT solve this problem? Not to mention that the OP does not have an appropriate tonearm for this Denon cartridge which makes the whole idea simply useless. You can’t add additional 20-30g weight just with two brass screws.

Moerch is a great toneam, but with the right High-End cartridge.

The price of the Denon 103R + the price of the SUT or better phono stage aren’t cheap if you will summarize. Add the cost of retip after 300-400 hrs of use. Buyin’ all these to listen to the music with conical tip in 2019 is anachronism.

Properly selected $300-400 MM or MI cartridge for Moerch toneam is killing it without any extra investment in OP’s system. No problem with gain, no coloration, no etra components in the chain, better stylus profile, extended frequency range, better tracking ability, more everything ... and most important - user friendly stylus replacement after 600-1200 hrs of use with elliptical or line contact profile ... this is all about MM/MI

You might want to look at how effective mass is calculated.  You can make or buy a brass shim/plate which can add alot of grams.  Your constant attack on conical tips is not remotely agreed upon.  There is a cult following around the 103 for a reason.  

In a perfect world he would use a heavier arm.  I am running my own 14" arms.  But  he could try the brass on the cheap.  Cinemags transformers are cheap and work great with 103's.

I could go on and on but I did not write the post to change your mind only to let the OP know some options.

Enjoy the ride
Tom

in looking at the Pickering the holes for the hardware to attach to look bigger than what normally comes with cartridges these days ?

guess the issue I dont want to run into is getting any of these cartridges that you suggest and later on down the road, not having a place to send this to for re-tipping.     

What about the Audio Technica OC9ML / 11 OR 111 ?

in looking at the Pickering the holes for the hardware to attach to look bigger than what normally comes with cartridges these days ?

Yes and No.
I don’t know where do you look for the cartridges, but this is why i told you about mounting brackets which comes with every original Stanton/Pickering package, normally resellers does not have those brackets and without adding those brackets it’s imposible to mount Stanton/Pickering cartridges. Each time i see those cartridges for sale without brackets i think the seller has no idea what he is selling.

The brackets for Stanton/Pickering are made of hard plastic and has treated holes for mouting screws, this is how it looks like. And here is another picture of one of my ex Stanton with added brackets, look at that black plastic bracked on the mounting hole. You can also look at the specs of the cartridge when you will see a typical frequancy response from 10Hz to 50kHz (absolutely amazing).

guess the issue I dont want to run into is getting any of these cartridges that you suggest and later on down the road, not having a place to send this to for re-tipping.

You don’t have to re-tip an MM or MI cartridges, all those cartridges have stylus replacement, you can buy a new stylus and add it by yourself in 10 seconds.

However, if the stylus is hard to find you can buy JICO stylus for many vintage cartridges including Stanton and Pickering but do not expect the same sound quality as with the Original Stereohedron stylus (the original is way better) !

Not sure why do you think there is no place to retip an MM cartridge? Any retipper can retip your MM cartridge and the best company to retip Stanton/Pickering is EXPERT STYLUS in UK. You can email them to ask for the price: info@expertstylus.co.uk I got quites from them for re-tip with Paratrace stylus (almost like Stereohedron) and it’s about £120.00 - £180.00. They can also replace the whole cantilever for £291.00 - £330.00. Take in count that Paratrace is one of the best stylus profile available today.

However, the cost of retipping service with a proper stylus profile often very close to the price of a new cartridge, so in my opinion retip is not worth it if your cartridge cost $300-400. It’s better to buy another cartridge for nearly the same price. Or to buy an original stylus fro the same price.

SoundSmith is specializing in retipping and refurbishing Grace cartridges, he even offering his own stylus replacement for the Grace (expensive).

BTW the mounting screws to add weight for MC carts looks like that and you can find them on ebay from the manufacturer (different size available). The AT OC9ML is a good cartridge, but i have no idea why do you want an MC cartridge ? If you think a cheap MC is better than MM please read this thread first.

Well, i think you got maximum infromation from me in this thread about everything. If you missed something please re-read my replies and check the links. Hope it will help