I had an Ortofon 2M Blue on a Technics SL-1200 M3D, and it sounded great. I was hesitant to buy the Blue as I had a previous experience with an OM-5. I know they're two completely different cartridges, but I was afraid that the "house" sound of Ortofon wouldn't be to my liking. The Blue was impressive in every way, and I think it represents an excellent value.
If you were to consider a Denon, you may want to look at the DL-110 instead of the DL-103. I have the DL-110 on a Rega Planar 2, and I'm very happy with it. It is a high output MC cartridge and works with a MM or MC input.
Regarding the compliance of the Denon cartridges, I stumbled across this quote, and while I haven't verified with measurements or exhaustive cross-referencing, it seems to be accurate in my experience. If you're interested in a Denon, you may want to investigate this further. The other references I found used a ballpark multiplier of 2.
Quote below:
" Denon and AT measure compliance at 100Hz. However, compliance for the purposes of mating a cartridge with a tonearm and finding an optimum resonance point is measured at 10Hz. Multiply the compliance of Denon and AT cartridges by 1.6 to 1.8 (in my experience) and you'll be in the realm of their actual compliance at 10Hz."
If you were to consider a Denon, you may want to look at the DL-110 instead of the DL-103. I have the DL-110 on a Rega Planar 2, and I'm very happy with it. It is a high output MC cartridge and works with a MM or MC input.
Regarding the compliance of the Denon cartridges, I stumbled across this quote, and while I haven't verified with measurements or exhaustive cross-referencing, it seems to be accurate in my experience. If you're interested in a Denon, you may want to investigate this further. The other references I found used a ballpark multiplier of 2.
Quote below:
" Denon and AT measure compliance at 100Hz. However, compliance for the purposes of mating a cartridge with a tonearm and finding an optimum resonance point is measured at 10Hz. Multiply the compliance of Denon and AT cartridges by 1.6 to 1.8 (in my experience) and you'll be in the realm of their actual compliance at 10Hz."