Denon DL-103 -- Was it a mistake?

The Compliance-weight relationship is closer to ideal for the 2M and the Clearaudio arm than it is for the 103 - so even though the 2M Red is a more modest cartridge - it should sound a lot better without having to tweak it. And the 2M Red probably still has a little breaking in to do. With that said, it is never going to sound quite like your Virtuoso.

Well I remounted the Denon to try some loading plugs that I made. I actually learned that doing this will actually *lower* the load resistance on the Cambridge. For example, since the loading of the Cambridge is 100 ohms, if I add 100 ohm resistors in parallel, I am actually lowering the total resistance to 50 ohms. I noticed that by doing this, the sound gets more "deep" into the soundstage, dynamics are smoother, but at the same time less exciting. I didn't notice much difference in the treble. However, when I mounted the cartridge this time, I made the tail end of the tone arm a tad up instead of way down as it was before, and this seems to have surprisingly helped the sound a lot. Ultimately I'm leaving the loading at the default 100 ohms. To *increase* that number, I'd have to physically open the unit, remove the 100 ohm resistor, and put something else in. If I were to do this, I would put in a 10,000 ohm resistor, then use plugs to tone it down. But I will say that I am growing to like the DL-103 a bit more. I am getting used to its sound, although it does still sound just a tad bright in my system. This may change as I put even more hours on it.

FYI...

Parallel Resistance Calculator.

Sorry for not replying Jwglista but it seems you've figured it out anyway.

These cartridges are incredible but will not even begin to tell you what they can do until 50 hours in and sound best at 100 plus hours. Many modifications available which vaults their performance even further.