What innovative, unconventional cartridge designs can you recommend?

@pindac wrote:

I am saying why does a modern design Optical Read Cart', need a Diamond Cantilever or other materials renowned for being exceptional when used as conduits for managing transferred kinetic energy. 

Because before those kinetic energy signals (I'll call them vibrations) get to the transducer they must be faithfully read in the groove and transmitted up the cantilever to the transducing mechanism, whatever its sort. Up to that point all we are doing is transferring those vibrations. If you say it doesn't matter for an optical cartridge, why should it matter in any other kind of cartridge?

@dogberry 

Agreed.  For the initiated, and this is subtle, there is a longer path through the cantilever to the transducer for most cartridges, so more scope for evil vibrations to wreak havoc.  The DS Audio and AT ART1000 originally mentioned in this thread are unusual in that their transducers are closer to the pointy end.

I am mindful that some of the cartridges mentioned above are more expensive than my entire Holbo air bearing turntable system with tangential arm plus DS003 cartridge plus SoulNote Equalizer combined!

Ken Kessler's review for HiFi News concluded

The DS 003 shows emphatically how trickle-down technology benefits the customer. As close as it is to the mind-boggling Grand Master, enough differences ensure that the two can co-exist. If you can afford a Grand Master, buy it. If you cannot, the astonishing DS 003 will still blow your mind

I for one am anxious to learn how RB likes the DS003, once he’s received his and has had the opportunity to audition it in his home system. Until then, I don’t think any one of us, certainly including me, has the expertise to decide about it up or down based on engineering or physics.

@lewm 

I hope you are not as anxious as I am!

I really have to thank you for getting me this far into vinyl.  My latest steps have mainly been guided by recommendations, reviews, physics, engineering, and price / discounts.  I rarely make changes to my gear, so I am an unreliable reporter when it comes to changes in sound quality because I do not have much basis for comparison, except large-scale live music.

My normal starting point is skepticism, and a belief that if there is a real difference, it should be explained by physics, now or in the future

Fingers crossed

@pindac Stated " I'm happy to be proven wrong, expose myself to the Public Humiliation through being wrong, "

Not one post made following the post that contains the above, has been in anyway convincing, that a satisfactory description is supplied.

All that is being read by myself, catapults me into what is very much proven for a Cartridge using Technology for Electromagnetic Induction Principles. All of which I am familiar with and when correctly explained fully believe. As the designs are produced as result of 50ish Years of R&D from significant authorities in this field of expertise.

@pindac Stated " I can't answer these inquiries, but there is somebody who can, definitely not the usual contributor to the Gons Analog Section. 

For myself, I have no willingness to accept descriptions that imply that the Typical Cart' design where electromagnetic fields are produced, has identical impact on each system. "

@pindac Stated " I am not the Foe of the Optical Cartridge, I am simply a individual who having experienced them is use on a familiar system at the time. Ended Up not being impressed to the place the design become an item to pursue. "

It is no secret on the Gon, that I have made it known, I have been extremely impressed by the design I was demonstrated for a Low Eddy Signal Path used a system I know very well. I have now developed my own Low Eddy design, even though differences are in place to the design that was most impressive.

The Low Eddy impression lead me to discovering a Cartridge that I have shared the Model on the Gon, that was designed from the Ground Up to be Low Eddy, and this does stick as a Cartridge of Interest.

The modern design Optical Read Cartridge is also a Low Eddy design, as a result it is also a Cartridge I should be showing a keenness towards. As a result of my prior experience, I have no keenness able to be expressed. The issues shared on other forums about the quality control for the Stylus Mounting on the Cantilever. Where Zenith and Azimuth are quite a bit off, is a bitter pill one will have to swallow.

If I was to look at making a Cartridge Purchase from any Brand or Cottage Industry Model that had quality issues reported similar to DS Audio. For myself, I would be making it very very clear to the Vendor, as I do with Vendors in my Vintage Valve purchases. If the delivered item, isn't as it should be, it is coming straight back, with a full refund of monies immediately available. If that arrangement is not on offer, it will be a Cartridge/Valve Sale not to occur. I am fortunate to be able to have Valves immediately measured, and my TT-TA specialist friend loves to use the purpose acquired tools to look at a Stylus condition / mounting on a request. Fortunately Stylus's only wear through use and occasionally known to detach. They are not usually known to reorientate themselves on a Cantilever through general usage, probably not even when scratching the Vinyl for a Hip Hop experience.

My net remains cast to discover a description that really does make sense of this.

Photon - Shadow - Electron - Electrical Impulse. (How does materials used for the structure produced, enabling of this to occur. Benefit the process, other than to be the enabler of the function to occur???