Dear Terrence,
I'll have more later. Know this. Your cartridge is better than anyone will believe. Dan Rosca, DR Consulting, Buena Park, 714-402-1760, a true Linn expert, carefully examined your workmanship and found it impeccable. He worked hard to tune my Linn Sondek LP-12/Ittok LVII so that it would work. I doubt if you've heard better. He adjusted the phone stage input impedance to 600 ohms after careful listening. He cannot believe that the cartridge already had 50 hours on it. The sound was better than any other 103 mod he's encountered; although he thought XYZ did a good mod years ago at 3x your price.
BTW He didn't use the lead tape, because he had some tooling. The expensive counterbalance on eBay is better than the Linn one, but I stuck with stock - pricing.
You and Dan are similar people in some ways. I'm not sure you'd get along - strong, tech opinions, but you're both very good. Lastly, the reason he opposed your cartridge was that the weight puts more force on the tonearm bearing. Linn tonearms are designed for light cartridges. He really wants to mount your cartridge on a Grahm 2.x series arm or a VPI.
Lastly, my system is now show quality. OMG the sound is now heavenly.
Best wishes,
Dennis
Follow up report:
Terrence,
Of course. Your cartridge is far superior to others. You need a comparison to the Ortofon Quintet Black/Bronze. BTW, this will be my yelp for Dan Rosca:
After thirty years in Southern California with a Linn Sondek LP-12 turntable and Ittok LVII tonearm, I've quietly encountered almost all of the leading installers and maintainers of LINN audiophile products. None have exhibited the talent, insight, and dedication of Dan Rosca.
Fortuitously, I've worked extensively in precision engineering of optics and motion control, where nanometers matter. Mr Rosca will speak extensively about the effects of cartridge mass, dimensions, compliance and bearings. His words may not be exciting, but if you want to get the most out of an audio setup; they are sweet. His statements are not BS.
Dan backs up his knowledge with extreme attention to detail and professionalism. My tight budget and unusual request pushed him. Asking him to install a modified Denon DL-103, which is too heavy for an Ittok arm; along with an inappropriately designed tonearm cable placed him in a territory where he could not guarantee great results. Other technicians would simply install, take the money, and waive goodbye. Mr Rosca presented the case against doing what I requested first, suggested alternatives, then he did everything possible to make my request work. He spent hours inspecting, measuring, adjusting and listening to not only reassure me that the wrong cartridge was superb, but he also tweaked the tonearm brilliantly so that it would counterbalance the excess mass correctly. He could have used lead tape, but it would have been inelegant to his eyes. He went so far as to borrow my phono stage so that its impedances could be adjusted during listening. To put it differently, he gave Ferrari effort on a Miata. Sugar.
After Dan finished installation and tuning, my deck sounded better than it ever has. In my home, guests, who've known the system over years, marveled at the dramatic improvement in what we all felt was already great sound.
It should be noted that Tim Miner of Pacific Coast Audio, Corona del Mar, introduced Mr Rosca to me and allowed Dan to work in the store to make the logistics easier for Tim's customers; of which I'm a very, very small one. His graciousness is appreciated.
If you're on a review site, I'll be glad to post.
Best wishes,
Dennis