Phono stage good for classical and jazz?

Frogman, thanks for the extensive write up. It got me thinking about system add-ons. I would like to either grab a spare pre or another cartridge to change up the sound and the Herron sounds like a good place to start.

But first the Raytheon's.

br3098, both the accuphase and project phono S do support MC. it will be very obvious if you are using a MC cartriage with a MM only phono amp

is there something i can do to rememdy the mismatch, blu tec a nickel to the tonearm some people sugguest?

unfortunately, I have to stick with what I have for a while?

Jackyjack,

No, you really can't overcome a fundamental compliance mismatch between cartridge and tonearm. Adding mass will simply add mass where neither the tonearm or cartridge designer wanted it, and still won't overcome the basic mismatch problem.

You can order a Denon DL-110 HOMC cartridge (plays through the MM stage) for just $87. I would give that a try first and see if it sounds better than your DL-103R before dropping some major gelt on a (possibly unnecessary) external phono amp.

If you think that you need a new phono amp on a budget, I have had heard good results with the Lehmann line. They have units in all price ranges from <$500 to approx. $2K.

Having said that, there are lots of guys who use and enjoy the sound of their DL-103 cartridges on lighter-weight tonearms. I'm just not one of them.

I used a much cheaper pro-ject rpm 1.3 genie which came with a factory installed ortofon 2M Red. The result and the dynamics was surprisingly good.

That's why I upgraded to the current 2 xperience with the denon 103r.

What are the symptoms of a cartridge / tonearm mismatch?

Many people said the Rega tonearm matches well with the denon 103r. But the Rega and Pro-ject tone arms are having more or less similar weight.