Zu Audio DL-103(r) variants vs standard Denon DL-103 cartridges?

I own both the DL-103 and 103r cartridges, and like them a lot. I have often taken a look at the Zu Audio DL-103 offerings, but have never sampled one or pulled the trigger on them.

For those that own both, or have had a chance to compare them, is it worth the two to three hundred extra bucks (or more) in your humble opinion? I thought about trying their Zu DL-103 Mkii they are offering now, and wondering if it would trump my stock DL-103, or better yet trump the DL-103r stock? I was looking at the Grade 1, not the standard.

For those about to ask, yes, my tonearm can handle the increased 14g mass of the Zu DL-103 over the 8.5g DL-103 stock mass. My tonearm has an EM of 22g, and I can get close to 9hz resonance with the right headshell on the Zu DL-103.... just want to stay focused on the comparison and not get sidetracked on whether it is a good match for my tonearm - it is!

 

Are You sure it's a good match?

 

I ran modified 103R's for about 6-7 years. Changing to an aluminum or ebony body (I found them to be similar in character but quite different from some other woods) will improve the cartridge significantly, as will changing the cantilever and stylus to something better.

Would I purchase the Zu? No. Because you can save yourself a ton of money simply doing it yourself.

Buy a body like this one for $40:

SOUND-IMPROVEMENTS ALUMINIUM BODY FOR DENON 103 & 103R | eBay

and then follow these instructions:



You already have the cartridges so you're halfway there. The only thing you will be missing is the epoxy potting that Zu does and you can also look into doing that yourself with $5 worth of epoxy, but be aware that overfilling the cavity will kill the cartridge. Just do some research on it.

Alternatively, if you didn't feel comfortable doing the potting and had a 103 or 103R that was well used and had a lot of hours on it you could send it to Peter Ledermann at Soundsmith, who would install it into the body and then pot it for a nominal fee (probably about $70). Have him retip the cartridge with a better cantilever and stylus (either the aluminum/elliptical or the ruby/standard line contact) and you'll end up with a cartridge that is far superior to the Zu (either their 103 or 103R version) for a fraction of the price.

 

I own a Zu Denon. Like it a lot. Never heard the stock one, but assume it's good.

 

I put a hardwood body on a 103r myself. I watched a bunch of youtube videos on the subject. For attachment I used wood glue. It's been performing great for a lot of years, fact is it may be time for a visit to sound smith.

 

There also Audio MusiKraft which takes it a step further and has an aluminum body as well, but allows you to experiment with other types of wood.


The first part in a long series from Jeff Day: Today’s Fresh Catch: The Audio MusiKraft ‘Tunable’ Denon DL-103 Phono Cartridge!

 

Guys - what was the weight of the cartridge when you were done in each particular case. (stock is 8.5g, Zu is 14g, your option ends up being <fill in the blank>?)

 

Part of what Zu is doing for the potential purchaser is weeding out pickups that don't measure up to a specific standard of performance. That's not to say that you couldn't find one that performs as well, but their testing for tolerances is their cost being passed on to you. Other than that, the actual removing the outer plastic casing and potting the cartridge can be pretty easily done, if you have reasonably steady hands and a sharp, thin razor like an Exacto knife. There are quite a few vendors who sell bodies made of aluminum, magnesium, stone, or various hardwoods.

I have a Denon 103R I've been using the last year, and put it into an aluminum body from Paradox. Paradox includes small shot pellets to place into the body before potting. Weight after surgery was around 15 grams.

 

Do you mind sharing the link to which hardwood body you used?

 

My ebony body was 12 grams. Aluminum body I have here is 14 grams. Personally I think aluminum is the way to go as I ended up eventually stripping one of the mounting threads on my ebony body after removing it and remounting it a number of times over the years. That will not happen with the aluminum body.

 

Thanks Blake.... question - when you say aluminum "body" is 14g, I assume you mean the total weight of the cartridge when you were done was 14g, and not just the body?? In other words, the same weight as the Zu...?

Also,what are the caveats, risks here? I have never done it obviously - any risk of misalignment? Anything that others have tried and perhaps failed or damaged the cartridge? Just trying to weigh the risk vs reward. I am pretty handy, not afraid of working with my hands (I have a woodshop for instance), but always want to know what to watch out for going in... I am one of those that likes to test the water before diving in..

Thanks for sharing.

 

If you're used to any kind of detail work at all, I'd say you'd be fine doing this. I'm only a fair-to-middling handyman type, and I didn't find it difficult at all. The video blake posted above is the same one I watched before slicing the Denon generator out of the plastic body, and there are several in this link done by Paradox, the company I bought an aluminum body from on ebay: paradoxtar - YouTube

Take your time, lay out your tools, take care, and you should be fine. I found doing it surprisingly easy. Some of the videos show the modification needing the nuded body edges to be filed to fit into the new case, but I didn't need to do that. Note in the third Youtube video in that link that Terence uses small bits of painter's tape to block off the back of the re-cased generator before potting, and that's a handy idea, too. I also agree with blake that the aluminum bodies will last longer for you.

 

Also, will this fit most standard headshells? I have headshells like the Zupreme, AT HS-10, Denon PL-5, AT HS-1 to name a few... I can already see it won't fit my Yamaha HS-11 headshell as the screws have to go in the top.

Will the screws provided fit in the slots of headshells like the AT-HS10 where it's slotted on top, or are the screw heads too big? Also - what is that headshell you have pictured there?

 

Thanks - my abilities to do the task don't concern me - I am just trying to understand if it's worth it... I don't care if it's five bucks or fifty bucks, if I get done and it is one of those things that you really don't notice a difference, I won't even try. So many hobbies (and I have many) have cottage industries around modifying things with bottom line marginal return... if you catch my drift.

Can you give me your subjective level of improvement when you were done?

I will say now what I have learned from you and Blake on this thread, either way I won't buy the Zu now, I am really starting to question the value proposition weighted against the price they command - sure they test tolerances and grade, etc... but the bottom line of what they are doing is fitting a new body... they aren't modifying the cantilever, wiring or anything like that.... so thanks for the education on that part.

 

clubWOOD.Premium Woodcrafts.Highend Audio Accessory


I found them on eBay. The link is their page.

Merry Christmas

 

Hi:

Link below is to a review I wrote on the first Uwe ebony body I used starting in 2007 so you can get an idea of what to expect when you change bodies. That cartridge was actually not potted in the body-I did that with the 2nd generation ebony as well as the aluminum body that I used over the years following that first one.

https://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=vinyl&n=694577&highlight=Denon+Uwe+Blake&r=&search_url=/cgi/search.mpl?searchtext=Denon+Uwe+Blake&b=AND&topic=&topics_only=N&author=&date1=&date2=&slowmessage=&sort=score&sortOrder=DESC&forum=vinyl

As I said earlier, I would stick with an aluminum body. I used 3 different wood bodies over the years and an aluminum one. I found the ebony and aluminum to have a very similar character-the aluminum might have been slightly more powerful and dynamic and the ebony slightly warmer, but I would have a tough time telling them apart. On the other hand, I also used a clavellin body that Uwe did as well and did not particularly like it. I found it to sound a bit thinner and a bit tippy and splashy in the high frequencies. All woods are not created equal in this regard, whereas (just my opinion) the aluminum bodies, which are all CNC'd and approximately the same weight should provide a very similar presentation, although cosmetically they can be quite different. The Midas body a few years ago was kind of the cosmetic king but the Paradox is the real beauty now and available in multiple colours, etc. It does have the feature of being massed up even more with lead shot which sounds kind of interesting and it is a real beauty. No question about it, but you do pay for that as opposed to the body which I linked to, and I've always been a cheapskate haha!

To answer your question. I've certainly had no problems with alignment, but I've pretty much aligned with arc protractors in the time I've used the bodies, so would be aligning the cantilever anyway. But as I said above, all these bodies are CNC'd so very precise; as long as you seat the cartridge securely into the body there should be no issues.

Both my aluminum body from the UK and the Uwe bodies used M2.5 cartridge mounting hardware, which is pretty much standard for cartridge mounting in Europe and Asia. Any cartridge hardware I have here from AT or Denon for example is the M2.5 thread. If you bought something like the kit below (you would not need any of the nuts but you might use the washers depending on your headshell) you would cover all the possible bases depending on your headshell, or you could probably hit any hardware or fasterner store to pick up any length that you require for pennies if you are too long or too short with any supplied mounting screws. I prefer a hex top and stainless steel as opposed to slotted which is typical with some of the less expensive supplied hardware from AT or Denon though which is typically aluminum and slotted.

Deluxe Turntable Cartridge Headshell Mounting Bolt Screw Kit 39 Pieces | eBay

Paradox, I see uses a non-metric thread size, but they also supply all the mounting screws (I would assume in various lengths), as they should for the price IMO!

The headshell you saw in my photo is a custom ebony headshell based on the Orsonic design by Uwe Bretschneider, who was also the original maker of these custom wood bodies back in 2005-2007 (I was running an ebony bodied Denon a year or two before Zu hit the market with their product). But all the cartridge mounting hardware you see in my photos would work fine with any top mounting slotted headshell on the market. You may or may not have to use washers-I've done both. With the body that I linked to, as you pointed out, "bottom mount" headshells like your Yamaha HS 11 are a no go. It might be possible with the Paradox as it appears the mounting threadings are drilled entirely through the body, but I would still expect that kind of mounting might be problematic as you would have a lot of screwhead exposed on the underside of the record which would quite possibly hang the cartridge up on any minor or major warps, etc. I think you pretty well have to commit to using a standard top mount slotted headshell but you should be fine with any of them.

Finally, the cartridge weights I gave above were total weights. Most of the aluminum bodies on the market are in the 6.2 to 7 gram range. The Denon plastic body is 1.6 grams when it's removed. So if you know the weight of the body you purchase, your new cartridge will be 8.5-1.6+ new body weight + any epoxy you use to pot the cartridge if you do that (maybe another gram or so). The body that I linked to in UK Ebay is slightly different than the one I used in that it has a curved front and its overall finish is probably a little nicer than mine. The Paradox is definitely flashier though-it is a beauty-but it should be for 3X the price LOL!

There are really two risks in damaging the cartridge when you do this. One (and people have done it) is that you snap the cantilever off in the process of removing the old body and inserting it into the new body. The other is that you sever one of both of the very fine wires along the side of the cartridge, either in the process as mentioned above or in potting the cartridge by using the wrong type of epoxy or overfilling the cavity.

If you're going to screw up, severing the cantilever is probably the best option if you have a cartridge that has fairly high hours on it as you could then justify sending it off to Soundsmith or Andy at phonocartridgeretipping.com for a retip. That will take the cartridge even further and is well worth doing as it will then be able to really compete with some high rollers. But retipping is much more expensive than rebodying, especially if you go the semi-DIY with the re-body. In that sense, the re-body is the first thing that should be done and by far the biggest bang for the buck. Which is why Zu has been so successful with it.

 

I used to have a stock DL103R and while it was great as is, I was curious about potting it into a different body. A friend of mine tried doing this himself with his Dl103 and mistakenly ruined the cartridge. I didn't want to mess with it so I chose to have mine potted into a Paradox Pulse body. If you contact him on his site or eBay I think he charges $50 or so for the service and does an excellent job at it. The turn around time was amazingly fast (2 days). When I got the cartridge back, it was readily apparent that this was a different beast than stock by it's looks and weight (significantly heavier). And then when I listened to it in my system, I noticed improvements all around in the sound. I would highly recommend going this route to any DL103/103R owner.

 

Thanks for the detailed response! I have been doing a fair amount of reading on this since I initially posted (I see you have helped others elsewhere on this too), and there are a lot of discussions on the net of wood vs aluminum. My conclusion is that if and when I give this a try I think it will be aluminum body. The $40 price for the UK version makes it easier to decide, that is a fair price. I have a pretty well stocked woodshop, and I could probably make a wood body myself - sure it wouldn't be milled, but if I took my time there is no reason it couldn't be just as good as anything I would buy - but that is a project maybe for further down the road. $40 is cheap enough to bury this idea for now. I am also going to read further and even consider the Paradox body like you have.

Given the low mileage on both my 103 / 103r, I will probably opt for a re-tip after I get my monies worth out of the original - plus it gives me a chance to baseline and measure (subjectively) any improvements I might get out of just the re-body first. I will probably try the 103 first, but it may be some time before I get around to it. I would have never thought about re-tipping with the plastic bodied 103, to me at the price it is a "throw away" but with a custom body it brings a whole new dimension if I like the results.

As far as Peter at Soundsmith, of course being around audio gear for a while I am familiar with his work and see him mentioned often - so that is probably a good resource if the re-tip option rears its head.

Regarding potting - this is another topic thoroughly discussed around the net - some debated the need (or not) of potting with wood. The recommendation from most is not to pot with wood, but others discussed the potential for damping issues, etc. But for the aluminum - most recommend epoxy which would clearly be a permanent mounting solution. Did you ever consider a more semi-permanent potting solution, one where you could remove it later on and replace instead of retip? Something where the body is reusable if you decide to replace later on?

As far as giving this a go on my own, that is a no-brainer, this mode looks very simple and is right up my alley. I have been working with my hands doing detailed work for many years, including model building, so I have no shortage of expertise and tooling for something as simple as this. The only thing I have found in my later years is I need more light and magnification - I am sure others with old eyes can relate to that.

At this point my questions have been thoroughly answered regarding my initial post, any other feedback or thoughts from anyone else on the topic are welcomed!

Thanks Blake (and Googly) it is always refreshing when you get more than 1-2 sentence answers and quality help!!!

 

I've been interested in sending my 103 to Paradox for him to pot, but figure I have enough cartridges at the moment. For the modest charge I'd say taking advantage of his experience in doing this would be worthwhile even if I felt confident in doing it myself (which I admit I do not).

 

Has anyone ever successfully re-potted a new 103 in a Zu shell, i.e. have they been able to remove the original potted 103?

 

All that epoxy sure feels like a one way street. And as the owner of a Zu 103R with a Soundsmith eliptical tip on it, I'd definitely suggest looking that route instead. I have the cheapest cantilever/stylus arrangement and it sounds glorious.

 

Yes, good point - and why I asked the question of a "semi-permanant" adhesive above. Note a wood body - the recommendation is no adhesive.

There are options for an adhesive, like maybe a latex caulk, where it could be removed later. (I did not say silicone because of it's chemical make up might cause some reaction with the plastic, or something, but unsure, but same concept).

 

A good and very timely question - in fact, I had someone contact me on PM who has a Zu DL-103 with a broken cantilever, and wants to sell it for a very good price... then I could have the Zu body instead of the aluminum. I look at the Zu body at least the equivalent of a Paradox at that point....

... the other option of course would be to re-tip the DL-103 in the Zu body, but I am not sure as to the extent of the damage done to the 103 .

But either way, it is probably entirely possible to get the old 103 out of the Zu body, even if I had to mangle / destroy it, then clean up / file the epoxy.

All great options folks, thanks!

 

Zu Audio is offering their standard version of the Zu Denon DL-103 for $249.99 (This is their standard version), through the end of this year.

 

Standard as in bone stock, not a Zu version?