Has anyone heard the Denon 103-SA?

The 103-SA costs money 'cause it's a limited-edition, numbered, wooden box type deal (personalized with your name on a plaque) to commemorate Denon having shipped 500,000 units of the 103 cartridge.

The extra weight is probably due to the blue fibreglass casing.

Note: the cartridge itself is really a 103R, with 6-nines copper in the coil and an internal impedance of 14 ohms instead of the regular 103's 40.

Also notable is the presence of tapped holes for the screws.

Patrick

I have installed one hour ago the DL 103SA to replace my 9 years old DL 103 ...

well big difference, more details especially in high frequencies, more macro dynamic and micro dynamic, everything sounds more lively

bad side, I hear also more white noise when the LP is not perfect

Clavil,

The differences you describe might be due more to replacing an old cart/stylus with a fresh on more so than any inherent differences in design/sound perhaps? Styli in particular require replacing from time to time with normal use.

The 103R (acquired from audiocubes a while back)is the best sounding cart I've used in my Linn rig in the last 25 years. Vinyl performance in my rig compres favorably to most anything I have heard around of late. I will probably buy a second at some point. I may look into one of Soundsmith's upgrades for that and also get my current 103R retipped by same as a spare.

Dear Mapman: P own several and different 103 models that goes from " so so " performance to good performance, till today I never heard a 103 model with exceptional/excellent quality performance, this is normal because we have what we pay for it and we can't expect to have a cartridge 1oK quality performance for 500.00-700.00.

Exeption to that are vintage cartridges where we can find exceptional quality performance cartridges for " cents " ( around 200.00 ).
One of these vintage cartridges that IMHO beats the 103 models for a less money and that performs like a 5K LOMC top cartridge is the Azden YM-P50VL that you can get in NOS status/condition here with Nick: clock3153@hotmail.com

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Raul,

Can you elaborate on how the Azden beats the Denon 103R and under what conditions?

How would it fit into my Linn Axis table with basik tonearm?

The Denons have been around a while but are still manufactured new I believe. How old are the Azdens? Is there a risk of performance deterioration due to age? Also, does anybody retip these if needed?

I've often thought a higher mass tonearm might be better for the 103R however I have been most satisfied with it on the Linn as is.