Upgrade My Denon DP80 Tonearm
Hello!
So for the last year or so, I have been enjoying my Denon DP80 with a DK300 plinth, DA 402 Long tonearm, and Denon 103 cart. In my (now current) interest in looking at sonic improvements to this set up, I read that the 402 a low mass tonearm and not well suited to the 103. So I began my due diligence on a Denon tonearm that would not require me to drill any new holes in the plinth...a drop in exchange of sorts. Google AI searches suggests that the 307 and 401 would fit this bill, but they look like shorter arms. For those with Denon knowledge, What would you recommend be my next tonearm pursuit, and what about a head shell? The 402 appears to have a proprietary (low mass) one integrated into the arm. I thank you in advance for your time in reading and replies...may they be kind and related to the topic at hand.
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Neither. Longer tonearms keeps the cartridge stylus pointed straighter than shorter tonearms when traversing it’s arc, but more mass weighs more and increases cost. Generally speaking, the sonic differences between a say 9 inch vs a 12 inch may be unnoticeable to minor, so it’s a personal subjective preference on which is best within budget. |
If you are looking for a new tonearm you need to be aware that many vintage and some new arms do not have offset vertical bearings. That is the vertical bearings do not align with the headshell offset. This means that when VTA is adjusted ( lift the arm up or down at the back ) on arms with non offset vertical bearings, the azimuth goes out - and the cartridge ends up leaning over laterally to one side. If you look at the 3 arm Victor TT picture above you can see that the Mission tonearm has offset vertical bearings that match the headshell offset. The other 2 arms on that turntable do not. I would never buy a tonearm with non offset bearings, even though some of them do have adjustable azimuth, because changing VTA between records becomes a nightmare, you have to correct the azimuth every time you change the VTA.
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If you feel the need to increase effective mass of your present tonearm, there is always the strategy of adding weight to the headshell or just buying and using a heavier headshell. I have long been touting the Ortofon LH9000 headshell, which weighs 18g, for this purpose. I too own a Denon DA307 tonearm, and its headshell is very light weight, less than 10g. I think it was aimed at MM cartridges with high compliance. So if your headshell is similar or identical, you may well benefit from one of the two strategies to increase effective mass, without the expense and labor required to buy a different tonearm and mount it. The DL103 cartridge has a notoriously low compliance. I know a local guy with a very elaborate system who nevertheless is hooked on the DL103; he runs it in a massive bespoke tonearm which by the looks of it may have an effective mass of 50g. |
