A few months ago, out of boredom, out of curiosity, out of the sheer “it was there”-ness of the audiophile vortex, I swapped out the Benz LP-S cartridge on my SME V arm (mounted on an SME 20/2) for the venerable Denon DL-103, the purported giant killer of all audio giant killers.
So it seemed right that in this, the first of what I hope will be a long-running series focused on investigating audio giant-killers, I should write about my experience with the DL-103 (retail price $299) and how it stacked up against the mighty Benz LP-S (retail price $6,000).
My aim with this series is to put a giant-killer up against a giant and, well, in the immortal words of Ann Wolfe – “they be chopping some wood… let the chips fall where they may.”
The Benz LPS certainly qualifies as a giant in my book. It’s the best cart I’ve had in my system, also the most expensive, retailing at $6k (though it goes on the used market in the $2k range and can now and then be found NOS for under $3k). Immediately prior to using the Benz I had a Lyra Delos and a Miyajima Kansui and the Benz was simply in another country of good. Both the Lyra (which I loved) and the Kansui (which I was on the fence about) had their strengths – the Lyra was fast and punchy, exciting, the Miyajima slower, meatier, more romantic. When I mounted the Benz my immediate impression was that where the prior cartridges had just been giving me the outlines of an image, a pencil sketch, now I was seeing the whole picture in Technicolor.
I’d had the Benz in my system for a good six months before I swapped it out for the DL103. This was in my main system in which I was then listening to vinyl exclusively. The turntable was an SME 20/2 with its accompanying tonearm, the SME V. At first I was running the Benz into an Allnic step-up transformer (the AUT-2000) into the MM stage of my VAC 160i integrated using a set of Auditorium A23 interconnects. Then I got a Modwright PH-9 phono pre and ran the Benz into the MC input of the Modwright through to a line input of my integrated with the A23 cables (the phono cable throughout was the stock SME cable – the VDH D501). That was my main set-up for the majority of my listening throughout this experiment (my speakers are Verity Parsifals and speaker cables are Tellurium Black II).
After I removed the Benz and mounted the DL103 (very easy cartridge to line up as you may or may not know), I changed the loading on the Modwright’s MC loading dial from 470 to 100 ohms (though ultimately I thought it sounded best at 200) and put on an original stereo pressing of “Bossa Nova USA” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet (Columbia – CS 8798) which has become one of my main test records over the years although I am not entirely sure why.
As the rock slowly dropped (the previous owner of my SME 20 set up the tonearm to drop SLOWLY and I have never bothered to figure out how to speed it up just a tad though it is probably an easy adjustment) I took note of my expectations which I would summarize thusly: If my Musical Enjoyment scale with the Benz registered a perfect 10 (just as a reference point), I expected to be down around a 5 or a 6 with the DL103. A 6 and I’d consider myself impressed, a 7 and I’d be wowed.
To cut right to the chase, I’m going to call it an 8 with an argument to be made for a 9.
You could I suppose stop reading now because what else do you need to know? Only a notch or two drop-off in the all important (but ever elusive) M.E. (Musical Enjoyment) factor when moving from a $6000 cartridge to a $299 cartridge? Shut the front door. If you trust me at all, then you’ll go out and buy that $299 cartridge or take the one that you already own out of the drawer you have it stashed in (you know the drawer, we all have that drawer). I eagerly recommend that you do so.
I suppose you also could say at this point, “Jesus all of this to tell us the DL103 is a good budget phono cartridge? EVERYBODY knows that.” But the point is to ask HOW EFFIN’ GOOD. And the answer is, based on this experiment, unbelievably effin’ good, at least when matched to an SME V (it is a notably low-compliance cartridge, the DL103, and I’ve had very blah results with it in the past on a light tonearm, in my case the SME M2-9).
Before I tell you what I heard I want to point out that the DL103 praise isn’t universal. At least one professional wax-oriented reviewer on his analog planet made of diamonds has declared “I think the cult over this cartridge is ridiculous.” Duly noted – a boldfaced name in the vinylsphere calls bullshit on the beloved Denon.
What I heard from the DL103 after the Benz was a more diminutive presentation, slightly less deep and wide, and even more noticeably rolled off on the top end and more sluggish in the bass. The highs were less extended and at the same time a little more brittle. As is so often the case for me, the change in the texture and impact of the bass was the main dividing point. The Benz on the SME V-SME 20/2 combination provided without question the best bass sound I’ve ever had playing vinyl – punchy, articulate, spacious, accurate. Most of the records I listen to involve an upright acoustic bass, and the sound of that instrument may be my favorite sound of them all. With the Benz on the SME, over and over again I had that wonderful feeling of “yes, this is exactly the way it sounds.”
A good bit of that feeling was lost with the DL103. The bass was softer, woolier, a familiar rendering of the upright bass that presents more like a modulating low-end tonality than a stringed instrument being handled and plucked by a living person.
“But wait wait wait… I thought you said it was good.”
Well, look, I want to be honest about what was lost, because it was not insignificant. And I can’t say either that there was anything that was gained, nothing that the DL103 did that the Benz did not.
But that’s not important because what we’re really talking about here is VORP. Value Over Replacement Player. There’s no doubt that Jason Giambi is better than Scott Hatteberg, that’s indisputable. But what is the impact on the bottom line (in baseball’s case that means “total wins”) of playing Hatteberg and letting Giambi and his staggering salary toddle off to free agency?
We’re all playing Moneyball all the time with our systems, and when I slotted in Scott Hatteberg (the DL103) into my lineup instead of Jason Giambi (the Benz LPS) what I found was that the team seemed hardly diminished at all. I guess ultimately I’m hinting at a version of sabermetrics when I talk about the Musical Enjoyment scale, although real sabermetrics seeks out via statistics the most rigorously objective assessment of success and failure in baseball, while my made-up M.E. scale is, of course, an entirely non-rigorous subjective assessment of whether I’m enjoying myself or not.
What’s shared between the approaches, however, is an effort to cut through the morass and get to the bottom line. In this case, the bottom line is simple: I didn’t feel any less enjoyment of the music with the DL103 than I did with the Benz. I was engaged, completely sucked in, I had an emotional and physical response. There was PRAT and there was slam and there was bloom in the midrange. Foot-tapping occurred, as did moments of awe and discomfort and indescribable tenderness. I felt like I was having a complete experience of everything I listened to and, while I remained aware of what the Benz could do that the DL103 could not, I missed it not at all. Never once did I think, “God I need to get that Benz back on there.” In fact I thought the opposite – “Why bother?” Because mounting a cartridge is a serious pain in the ass no matter how many times you’ve done it.
We all have different requirements, different ears, innumerable different factors calibrating our internal M.E. analyzers. So make of my experience what you will. But I leave you with this: In 2002, after Jason Giambi had gone and signed with the Yankees for 100-some million dollars, the small-market Oakland A’s won 103 games with Scott Hatteberg at first base. My audio-translated moral of this story is to say that if you’re the Yankees, by all means buy the Benz and play it every day. It’s a no-brainer. But if like most of us you’re the A’s (and if your tonearm is a good match), then you really owe it to yourself to see what happens when you slot the DL103 into your lineup.