denon dl 103 w/ origin live silver mk II: help

Not that it necessarily addresses the "shrill, sibilant and fatiguing" sound you reported in your original post, but any OL Silver owner using a low-medium compliance cartridge (including specifically the DL 103) owes it to him/herself to try the tweak described on the Strange Tonearm Tweak thread.

I did it back in 2003-04 and the improvement was not small. This was widely discussed for a number of years by regulars here and on Vinyl Asylum. I never heard anyone report anything but good results, typically very good.

Further if you read deep enough in that thread you'll find my post describing my partner's tweak to the tweak, which allows instant and easy fine VTF adjustment *without* moving that pesky counterweight. Very handy when fine tuning your cartridge setup.

Total cost of all the above: < $5.

So it has now been a week since I initially installed the denon dl 103. I changed the loading to 400 ohms and set the gain to 61 db on the Musical Surroundings pre. It seems as though it just needed some burn in time. The sound is much better. The midrange has become quite amazing. The bass has filled out. It honestly sounds like a completely different cartridge. The arm was left stock and I also did absolutely nothing to the vta. Tracking force still set at the factory recommended 2.5 grams.

I believe that most of the unpleasant sound that was being produced was a result of poor matching with the load settings and burn in time.

Thanks guys for all your help, insight, and time. I really appreciate it!

Final update. I still was not quite pleased with the sound that the denon dl 103 was producing. It sounded good, but I still was not experiencing what the fuss was about. I ordered an 8.5g cartridge stabilizer from isokinetik and a counterweight modification. Adding mass was the only thing that I had not tried with the denon as of yet. Let me tell you, I finally got to experience the full potential of this cartridge. It was literally as though a veil had been lifted. Everything was much more focused. My last question, has anyone noticed a substantial difference when switching to an under slung counterweight with this particular origin live tonearm? My current counterweight is literally almost hanging off the end of tonearm to compensate for the 8.5 grams of mass added to the denon. I think it might be time for a heavier one.

As usual I am coming late to the dance (this discussion).

Your experience sounds similar to what I experienced with my first 103. I will cut to the chase: what you need is A LOT more mass on the tonearm.
Go to Dicks sporting goods, but their lead tape that they have in the golf dept. Each strip is 4gm. Stick 2 on the shaft of the arm and half of one on the headshell. You will need the rest for the counterweight to counterbalance the additional weight.
It looks kind of Frankensteinis but it works great!

e

I believe the 103 likes a heavier arm, at least medium mass...?

If you run the DL103's factory specs (e.g., dynamic compliance of 5) for arm/cartridge resonance, you'd need a tonearm with an effective mass of 30g or so. Apparently this is not the case and Denon's compliance spec may have been derived from a different methodology than others. Although I have no direct experience with the DL103 series, I have an audiobuddy who has used one quite successfully on tonearms with an effective mass of 12g. This forum also has plenty of confirmations that the DL103 series works very well with medium-mass tonearms.

12g is a very mainstream effective tonearm mass, shared by the Rega RB30x series and even the tonearm on the Technics SL12x0 series.