What innovative, unconventional cartridge designs can you recommend?

I don't believe the heating effect is significant.  After all vinyl is a plastic which is permanently deformed when heated and pressed as a record.  At room temperatures it deforms elastically, springing back to shape eventually.

Let's estimate the friction watts converted into heat when a 1-gram stylus tracks a record groove at about 50 cm/second (@antinn).  For simplicity let's take a coefficient of friction of 1, so the drag on the platter is also 1-gram.  In reality, friction is a bit less, but there is extra drag with modulated passages.

From Wikipedia

At average gravity on Earth a kilogram mass exerts a force of about 9.81 newtons

Let's round a kilogram to about 10 newtons.  So a 1-gram mass exerts a force of about 0.00001 newtons.

When an object's velocity is held constant at one meter per second against a constant opposing force of one newton, the rate at which work is done is one watt

The record periphery is spinning at 0.5 meters per second, so the work done by a 1 newton stylus would be about 0.5 watts.  Downsizing to one gram, gives 0.5 x 0.00001 = 0.000005 watts, or 0.005 milliwatts or 5 microwatts.

I have the "cheap" DS Audio DS003 ensemble, which replaced a very old but still in great condition monster cable Sigma Genesis 2000. I would characterize it as sharp, articulate, and with amazing bass. Some may find it lean but I think of it as clean. 

@tcutter 

I have the "cheap" DS Audio DS003 ensemble

Thanks for your comments as a DS Audio consumer, much appreciated.

Your "cheap" I think only has validity in the context of DS Audio where prices rocket to astronomical quite quickly.

I am leaning towards the DS003 cartridge paired with the next level down equalizer, the DS-E3 which would save several thousand dollars.  This is mainly to keep the cost down while getting a line contact stylus because I think they do a good job reading over the wear created by other shapes!

Can you comment on this suggestion?  I know there are several third-party vendors who make equalizers for DS Audio’s optical cartridges, but I have yet to build a list.  Or to read a comparison review ...

A couple of posts ago I estimated the heat output of a stylus as about 5 microwatts.

Electromagnetic cartridges, moving magnet MM or moving coil MC, also generate electrical power so I thought an estimate of how much would be in order.

A moving magnet (MM) cartridge produces an output voltage, typically around 5-millivolts, but is loaded by a specific impedance, which is typically about 47,000-ohms.  From Ohm's Law, voltage = current x resistance.  So current is voltage divided by resistance, or 0.005 / 47000 = 0.1 microamps roughly.

Power is current x voltage, 0.005 x 0.1 = 0.0005 microwatts which I guess would be 5-nanowatts for a typical MM cartridge playing a well modulated groove.

Low Output Moving Coil cartridges produce much less voltage but feed it into much lower impedance loads.  Without doing the estimate, I doubt that the wattage would be much different

@richardbrand 

My understanding is that the equalizer has more impact than the cartridge on the sound, hence the stupid crazy high cost of their grandmaster equalizer.  If you’re going to go the optical route, I think you should take fullest advantage of it from the get-go. Hi-fi shark has some options for the DS 003 equalizer preowned. Something to consider. 
 

The only other optical equalizer of which I'm aware is made by Meitner. Anything from him is bound to be good. And expensive.