I just fired up for the first time in a few years. I don't think the sound of my old Denon 2803 was not great. Was running a Denon AVP8000 that had great sound but was still a little short of my Carver C4000 preamp. Now that I have a Denon 3808 I fired up the old Denon DP62L turntable with a Denon DL302 cartridge. Wow even though it has many hours on it. Maybe to many. I still ELP's Tarkus by Mobile Fidelity's master disc and put in the CD in to my Blueray player Panasonic BD35. No contest, the blueray was thin and no detail. We will see when I pick up my new player tomorrow a Denon 3800 blueray. It has some great dac's so we will see.

 Now I have a Sumiko Blue Point MC 1st gen with 10hrs on it so I may try it. My qusetion is can I run that through MM phono input 3mv my 302 has a .29mv output so I have to go through my old Carver since it's will push the 302's low output. I have tried a few MC preamps but thy will not push the 302's low output. I like the look of the new Denon 103 but that also has .3mv output. Is there a MC preamp that will not cost $3000+ that will run the .3mv?

Are you handy with solder?  You can make a nifty step-up transformer like I did using Altec 4722 transformers (usually for sale on eBay somewhere) for ~$300-400.

Here's the info I used to build mine.

 Thanks for the info. I may have the parts or a friend that has some. I meet with old time audio and vidios engineers for lunch once a week, being a audio and video engineer myself. I was looking at a Jolida JD-9A Phono Preamp. Change out he new 12ax7's with some Mullards or sylvania's that I have in my shop. I'm using my Carver C4000 phono stage now, it has a very good MC phono stage and run that to a aux in on my Denon 3808. I pick up my new blue ray player today. I can't pass that up. a $2000 player new in the box for $579. The audio and video section are a big step up. The new model is coming out, the model has WiFi and this one you need a thumb drive for updates. Big deal the audio and video sections are the same. I'm looking forward to some loss less audio. So I have to wait on a Jolida JD-9A Phono Preamp or a Audio Research PH-3 but that is $1000 to $1500 used. Or I can just reneedle my old Audio Technica AT155LC/G, MM for $100 to $170 It's a godd sounding cartridge but will not hold a needle to a Denon 103.

  So I going to look for parts to see how the Denon phono section sounds.