Technics SL-23 TT opinions.. mated with Denon DL-103?

@millercarbon

Do you know what is resonance frequency and why it shouldn’t be in the musical range? If you don’t know just buy yourself a Hi-Fi TEST LP, put low compliance cartrige on lightweigh tonearm, play Test LP and you will see how your arm and cartride will start shaking, a thrilling experience. This is resonance frequency. Do you want your arm and cartridge shaking while you’re playing normal record?

This is what’s on the Test LP:

Tracks 2 & 3: Cartridge & Arm, Lateral & Vertical Resonance Test
These two tracks are used to test the resonant frequency or your tonearm and cartridge combination in both the vertical and horizontal domains. These tracks offer both a visual and auditory indication of the resonant frequency; the stylus will “wobble” and the test tone will warble.

P.S. With Denon DL-103 cartridge a high mass arm must be used (20-30g effective mass), not a lighweight arm, this is the basics.

Denon is not the best cartridge at all, but using it on lighweight arm like @uberwaltz Black Widow (3g effective mass) is just the opposite to the common sense. The Black widow designed for MM cartridge with a compliance figure at least 4 times higher than DL-103 compliance. Also the effecive mass of the Black Widon is 10 times lighter than it should be for DL-103. The music will be transferred from LP to the speakers, but it’s a total mismatch in terms of tonearm/cartridge resonance frequency. I would never do that!

The cartridge is too heavy for that arm. He won’t be able to balance the arm anyway!

It’s a simple matter to turn a low or medium mass tonearm into a high mass one; just add weight at the headshell. For $150 it’s worth a shot. I would not be intimidated by the apparent mismatch between a 12g tonearm and a Denon DL103. If after adding 5-10g of weight to the headshell there is a problem with inadequate counterweight, that can also be addressed by sticking some bluetack to the CW. (Try it with no added headshell mass first and then add mass incrementally.) Have fun. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Chakster
Please do not insult my intelligence as though I do not know it should not work and that it is a total theoretical mismatch.

That is not remotely what I said.

I stated that it worked well enough for me to be a pleasant listening experience but obviously not as good as it could be.
Or indeed as a great lightweight vintage mm on same arm is.

But the point was it worked and was actually fairly resolving, much more so than theory would have you believe.

And that if the OP already has the 103 then he has NOTHING to lose by trying it.

As already stated there are plenty of ways to make a lightweight arm heavier, some prettier than others granted.

I have very successfully run an Acutex cartridge, with stated compliance of 42, in a Fidelity Research FR64S (high mass) tonearm using a 10g headshell.  (The original FR64S headshells were much heavier and only added further to the high effective mass of these tonearms.) I listened to that combo for months on end, and it always sounded great, with no hint of a problem with bass frequencies.  One reason for this result, in my opinion, is the age of the NOS Acutex; I doubt it exhibits the compliance originally spec'd for it because of stiffening of its suspension.  But I also take that to indicate that the compliance spec for most cartridges is an approximation at best, due to sample to sample variability in the construction of any cartridge.  Like Uber said, there's no harm in trying.