Why do I like the Denon 103r so much?

10-08-12: Schubert
If really on a budget, which many good folk are, the DL-110 is not all that far behind.

I have a DL-160, which is the 110's big brother, with a finer stylus and better cantilever. Given how my $325 Audio Technica AT150MLX leaves the DL-160 in the dust, I find it hard to believe that the DL110 is not too far behind the DL-103R.

Don't get me wrong: The DL-160/110 is a good cartridge; it's quite nice especially for the money with a warm rich sound and excellent tonal balance. But if it can't approach the AT150MLX, I don't see how it could be in the ballpark with the DL103R.

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.

If you use a tonearm with a removable headshell, you could swap in a heavier headshell to increase the effective mass. E.g., I have a Technics SL1210M5G. The stock tonearm eff. mass is 12g with the stock extremely light 7.5g headshell. The LPGear ZuPreme headshell weighs about 14 g, so that increases eff. mass to 18.5.

Another approach would be to get the Zu103, which with its solid aluminum body weighs quite a bit more than the stock DL103/103R.