Interesting journey. I never left, having used a Denon 103D and matching Denon AU-320 transformer since new in the 1970s as one of my vintage cartridge choices. My tonearm is rather a good match at 15 grams effective mass. I have a new 103 on the way to me from Thakker, in Germany, right now, this being a better match to my transformer than the 103R. My experience is that a properly matched transformer will be superior to a high gain phono stage with the 103, this may be due to it's unusually high internal impedance coupled with the low output voltage, or......? Rejection of out of band content, lower noise? Who knows? Results are all that matters. I can say that you will be very happy with your selection. If you have a bit of extra dosh lieing around, you may want to get a Shure V15111 before the prices become even further out. It is a nice classic groove chewer, as well.
My slow descent into retro MC madness...
OK, I have been reliving the audiophile childhood I never had and have several vintage decks, so I decided I had to learn what I had missed by never having owned nor heard a DL-103. I was deciding between the 103 and the 103R when I came across a few interesting references to the Zu-modified iteration prior to the Dudley Stereophile review. I decided to go with that one as two of my decks are american-engineered modifications of british or japanese standards... Oi, none of my counterweights will go past balancing 13 grams... 150g Groovetracer for RB300 on its way... while several of my powered phonostages will handle the 103's headamp spec of a 100 Ohm load, my studies indicated that a high-impedance transformer was necessary to exploit the cartridge... since I note a strong trend of improvement as one travels up that food chain, Auditorium 23 Standard is currently being burned in in my name... This will feed Quicksilver phonostage, pre-, and EL-34 monoblocks pushing Klipsch Chorus II's, all hooked together with Signal silver cabling and all of which I already had lying around... all to hear a frikkin $150 cartridge as it needs to be heard... Shoot me now or suffer the results of my evaluation against the more sane equipment I had been using before my holiday break... Hoping for some real euphonial bliss...