I’ve been accumulating MC’s over the past 4 or 5 years now and the Denon DL 103r has by far been the worst I’ve tried and I quickly sold it again. There’s a religious fanclub out there, but as far as I’m concerned the only thing going for it is the cheap price. These fans will say such criticism is unjust and that you’ll need a very high mass arm to make it ’shine’. Your Ikeda is the very ’model’ of such an arm, so you can judge for yourself. Perhaps the various upgraded versions on the market are better, but you know what they say about polishing a turd.....
You won’t believe how much better you can do within your budget and you don’t even have to spend it all! There are many options, some great ones already mentioned here, but you should also include the Phasemation PP-300 (or its predecessor the P-3G). This is a great match with your Ikeda arm and can be found for less than $1500.
