micro seiki ma505 with denon 103r, good or bad idea?

[gpak00]

Hi all, does someone use this combo?
I googled a lot about this one, but the opinions seem to vary from will work well to superbad combination So i'm a bit puzzled..

My arm is the stock ma505 that came with micro's dd40

Thanks in advance!

[nat]

I don't think the arm on the DD40 is a MA 505. It has superficial similarities, like the headshell, but it is a fixed arm which uses a conventional counterweight and spring to set tracking force and antiskate. I suspect it is more in the lines of a highly specced CEC arm rather than an actual Micro. Though I might be wrong.
I would suspect the 103 would sound fine in it -- perhaps not as heavenly as it would in a fabulous super arm, but there are an awful lot more happy 103 users (based on the number sold) than there are owners of super arms, so there is clearly a lot of wiggle room in arm/cartridge matching.

[phonomac]

Hello there,
The arm on a DD40 is a variant of the MA-505 (see brochure/manual in library). It doesn't have the VTA-on-the-fly base and the arm lift is integrated into the turntable, but the VTF and bias are still adjustable on-the-fly.

Interestingly , since it doesn't have to be a universal arm to fit all turntables, the separation between the horizontal motion bearings in the arm pillar is about twice that of the universal arm giving improved location in that axis.

As far as using a Denon 103r in it, I don't know, I've never been interested in trying it.

regards

Angus

[gpak00]

Hi Nat, Angus thanks for the replies. And Angus, interesting observation; dd40 with stock ma505's seem to go cheaper than regular ma505 arms so guess we should keep that sort of a secret then

The reason I'm thinking of getting a 103r is because i can't audition carts anywhere here, and this one seems to make a lot of people very happy. All the talk about it's musicality makes me sort of hungry.
Also it will be my first "big bugs" cart and this one seems a good start point since it goes relatively cheap on ebay, and it is a classic.
However i don't really get the whole compliance thing 100%, so that's why i'm asking. As far as i can tell an ma505 is a medium to high mass arm right?

So curious, what kind of cart do you play with? And what should i avoid or be aware of?

Cheers, Gerben

[alternativeroute]

Had the MA505/DD40 combo before. Definitely does both VTF and VTA on-the-fly (mmmm... looking at my pictures again, maybe adjusting VTA on-the-fly was not a design feature - but you could unlock the arm whilst in play and the tonearm would lift without skipping and then you could push it down again without the arm skipping and relock it)...

Cannot say though whether the arm/cart combo would work


Micro Seiki DD-40 / MA 505s by arclients, on Flickr


Micro Seiki DD-40 / MA 505s by arclients, on Flickr

This combo sounded really good:

MS DD40 + 505 arm + Ortofon 2mBlue + Orsonic headshell


Micro Seiki DD40 by arclients, on Flickr

[AudioSoul]

The arm on your TT does seem to me of medium mass which the 103R will work.
I have experimented extensivley with the 103/103R's and various arms. The 103/103R does sound better with higher mass, but the beautiful thing about it is you can add mass to the tonearm via headshell weights they are cheap and if you don't care for the results (but I think you will) you can just take it off. It won't get you the same results as a high mass arm but will get you close....

[nat]

I realize that I was thinking of a different table, the one Tannoy imported into the US in the early mid 70s, which I remember having the same model number, and was a nice early DD with a simplified arm. Yours has a MA 505 variant, as you thought.
I would go for the 103 -- the arm ought to work very well, and you can always add mass if you want. The 103 is not perfect, but it is a very nice sounding cartridge, and if you aren't able to audition a lot of cartridges, it is a pretty reliable best guess.