Potting a 103 has been, IME, a great tweak and well worth the effort. As a matter of fact, I found running a 103 nude with a carbon fiber top plate and potted to be the best version of this over achieving cartridge. And, yes, it sounds better than most under $1000.00 cartridges and some over that price point.
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So What is Potting and Why Bother? Potting of cart bodies involves applying an electrically inert compound to the cart internals to minimize unwanted resonances of the internal components. http://daveyw.edsstuff.org/vinyl/Potting/ |
There are some folks who insist that more (or less) of a particular attribute is inherently desirable (e.g., increased rigidity, reduced resonance). I don't think that is always the case. I don't think more damping (less resonance) is necessarily better sounding. If that damping changes the sound, it may make it sound better to you or worse, it is hard to predict the outcome. I would note that there are plenty of ways to screw up the sound, and relatively fewer and harder to achieve means of improving something. In other words, an sort of change is MUCH more likely to be bad than good. The epoxy potting could also affect the effective mass of the cartridge/arm combination. Again, who knows if that would be good or bad in any particular instance. But, I do applaud anyone willing to take the chance and experiment, provided that a bad outcome is something the person is able to take in stride. |
"What at would be the negatives for potting?" If you mean using the Epoxy to glue the wood body to the cart, it can't be undone. So, if it needs to come apart for some reason such as a repair, you won't be able to. I know people that have done this, but its been a while since I've spoken to them about this, so I'm not sure if there's any other reasons you shouldn't use Epoxy. |