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What innovative, unconventional cartridge designs can you recommend?

Most cartridges have a stylus and cantilever where the transducer (magnet, iron or coil) sits on the far end of the cantilever.  What other designs are there?

I am mindful of two designs which put the business end right on top of the stylus.  The first is the moving coil (MC) Audio Technica AT-ART1000 which places two tiny coils, each 0.9-mm diameter, with eight turns of wire directly above the stylus.  Australian price is about AUD-7000 and there apparently is a newer model, slightly less exxe. the ART1000X.  This has square coils for a bit more output, and threaded mounting holes.

A downside is that stylus replacement involves a factory maintenance program and the Australian website page describing this service does not exist.

Another design is optical, exemplified by DS Audio's range.  While these still need a stylus to trace the groove, the signal is produced by reading the intensity of light produced by a Light Emitting Diode (LED) hitting two sensors.  Between the LED and the sensors are two 'shades' mounted above the stylus which change the amount of light as the stylus vibrates.  These cartridges need a special "photo-stage" to replace the conventional phono-stage which is an additional expense.

Australian prices including photo-stages range from AUD-2,150 for the DS-E1 to the DS Master 3 at approximately AUD-40,800, which is a bit outside my price range!  Where is the sweet spot?

What other way-out designs are there?

richardbrand
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richardbrand OP
1,455 posts
 

@kennyc 

Seems significantly superior to the DS003. The noise floor is lower, magnetic hysteresis is nonexistent, Sonics are neutral

I have not found any reviews so far comparing DS Audio models.  Do you have any references?  Thanks in advance

elliottbnewcombjr
7,864 posts
 

"effective mass of the stylus is reduced because it does not have to swing magnets, iron, or coils, which should reduce the sidewall pressure."

Why is boron desired/needed?

I was expecting to find lighter tracking, perhaps new cantilevers, but found line contact on boron tracking at 1.95g, and that is what determines the amount of friction. contact with the sidewall must be good enough to read the groove walls, so whether it's wagging an extremely light beryllium light shade or a heavier coil, or even heavier magnet, it's still the flex coefficient of boron ____ (this long) with 1.95g down.

A different suspension no doubt, but it's got to get back in place for the next thing just as it always did.

richardbrand's avatar
richardbrand OP
1,455 posts
 

@elliottbnewcombjr 

whereas a pivoted arm, traversing an arc, is wrong most of the time, only perfectly straight at the two null points of that arc

Yep, spot on there.  We make a huge fuss about getting the Vertical Tracking Angle or VTA right, while seeming to forget that the Horizontal Tracking Angle or HTA is out by up to 2-degrees for most pivoted arms.  Unless I have made a huge mistake, for stereo playback HTA and VTA have identical effects on how the stylus tracks the left- and right-sides of the groove.  Each channel is cut at 45-degrees to both vertical and horizontal, so VTA and HTA are equally important?

Seems Wilson Benesch's investment in remote adjustment of VTA should have a matching investment in correcting HTA?

richardbrand's avatar
richardbrand OP
1,455 posts
 

@elliottbnewcombjr 

Why is boron desired/needed?

Compared with aluminium, ruby or diamond, it reduces the effective inertia of the cantilever assembly, as measured at the stylus.

Tyres wear as you cruise down a straight road, but they wear much faster when you do a lot of cornering.  A heavy limo creates more wear than a Lotus.

A stylus can be subjected to side loads above 10,000-G which I would have thought would chew out the stylus faster than the tracking force

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richardbrand OP
1,455 posts
 

The quoted output voltage of the Audio Technica ART-1000X is slightly higher than the ART-1000 at 0.22 mV (at 1 kHz, 5 cm/sec).  Would this normally need a Step Up Transformer?

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