Swapping the MMF 5 for an SL-1210M5G

Yeah the cart is an issue period, first off not that great of a cart. secondly its not set up right on top of it! With a dartzeel phono section you could take a fisher price turntable and sound better than most CD's! Something is matched wrong for sure.

Well the bottom line is its not the table.. it’s the setup of the table and your willingness to do this as correct as possible at this ponit. You made your own assumption correctly, you know you have too much invested to have it fail at this point… They should be able to get you like an audio technica OC9 or whatever I believe and it is about 299 on a sale, It has excellent reviews and you can find the right impedance settings running your MC phono stage I am sure…

But also HIGHLY suggest on learning about table setup, so you can tweak it out and understand what changes in certain parameters will effect what, I suggest playing with the VTA(arm height) trying to use a ruler and leveling it out on the M5G table, also having a 50 dollar Digital Stylus gauge to help you tweak the weight on your cart correctly and even have an idea how heavy or lite you are which will help get optimal bass and treble response and also helps peace of mind so you know realistically how optimal you have everything set up.. Also table isolation and the mats will be a big thing on any table..

So here is your issue, you do not want to spend more, but to justify your journey here at all especially with the front end equipment you have, believe that you will in time need not only the right matching cart, but several decent accessories/Tools to pull the most out of your analog setup if you want to be as good as you know that dartzeel system should be for the money.. So keep the table and patiently acquire all the knowledge and stuff needed to get you to the next level.

I went thru a similar growing pain a few years back and finally figured out, not only do you need a good table and phono stage which you absolutely have, but clean cared for Vinyl which will also dramatically improve your playback via possible RCM… Good stylus maintenance(maybe oznow Zerodust), Good Cart matching your preamps phono setting capabilitys, Good isolation table and possible Platter mats from like Herbies, Iso, boston, whoever… It takes a little patience to set up and align all the parameters on your table to get this performance you seek out of such a sensitive and powerful setup you have. Its not as plug and play as some other rigs that’s for sure.

Denon DL301 I use it... It kills a 103 anyway, higher output as well, far better body and stylus stock form no need for ebony bodys, or other tweaks, or step up transformers.

Johnnyb53, Tvad

So let me ask, the M5g Headshell with headshell leads is 7.5 grams? The Denon with a 12 gram shell should suffice? Now Technics supplies the headshell with a 4 gram additional weight as well bringing the total up to 12.5 grams just a tad over this Sumiko shell.. So why not do that for free and try right?

I am going to give this a shot myself, so tell me guys if I do the stock headshell with the 4 gram weight screwed in and the denon 301 II which states its 6 grams etc... I should get this optimal magic figure of 10 to 12hz?

Thanks

Tvad,
Okay got you, Well I hope its 12 grams without counting the technics extra headshell weight, because if not then I guess it would be 16 grams..

It works perfect just as is.. But I do have the headshell weight I took it off immediatley and seemed to work dead on when using a digital stylus gauge, and got excellent results off the bat, and did not want to mess with it unless there was some magic reason to do so... Thanks