What innovative, unconventional cartridge designs can you recommend?

@pindac 

as you have recently discovered Ortofon are not shying away from showing their Technology in a very public exhibition

Ortofon has been around since the end of the first world war, and together with Audio Technica would constitute the two major volume suppliers of audio cartridges worldwide.

I have recently discovered DS Audio but Ortofon has permeated my awareness for close to 70 years.  The first cartridge my dad owned was an Ortofon.  That does not mean I know every model and every acronym they use!  I did not single out any Ortofon model in my monologue introducing this thread because I was looking for unconventional designs, not incremental developments.

I know specifications are not everything, but compare the most expensive Ortofon with any DS Audio cartridge and be prepared to be shocked

@richardbrand Stated "I know specifications are not everything, but compare the most expensive Ortofon with any DS Audio cartridge and be prepared to be shocked"

If by such a statement it is meant A/B Compare Cartridges in a End Sound Comparison used on the same audio system, which is a audio System costing close to £200K. This is what I have done, where from recollection the system owner was demonstrating their Grandmaster DS Audio Cartridge.

Part of the days plan was for my Demonstration of my Rebuilt Ortofon Cartridge, which as part of the rebuild had a Ortofon Specification WRD included for one of their TOTR Models from this time period. 

The following is an extract from the Invoice:

 Manual cleaning of 
generator

nw Ogura 
cantilever + Ogura Vital 
SA+ tip

nw Vienna spec 
Damper

Optimal 
generator alignment & testing

What was not expected was for my Cartridge to be used as an immediate follow up, as a comparison demo' against the Grandmaster. From recollection this comparison was encouraged by the attendees, prior to Phonostage Comparisons commencing which was the main topic of the arranged meeting and which I had brought my Bespoke Custom Design and Commission Built Phonostage.

The Cartridge produced as a rebuild design, inclusive of Donor Model was less than £1K.

In my own evaluation, my rebuilt Cartridge was to my assessment noticeably more attractive as an End Sound than the DS Audio Grandmaster.

Individuals who were present inclusive of a well known audio media journalist, approached me to learn how the same design for my Cartridge was able to be acquired. 

As stated previously, it is this experience that left me of the view, that the DS Audio Cartridge was not to my taste for an End Sound.

As stated previously, I followed a particular thread within a German Forum about DS Audio Cartridges and also introduced the Grandmaster owner to a alternative energizer as the result of learning what other DS Audio Cartridge owners were reporting.

I am yet to read anywhere, a content that is convincing that a DS Audio Cartridge is a betterment over any other Technologies Cartridges. Neither at near Parity in price or when the DS Audio Cartridge is substantially more expensive in price.

@pindac 

"I know specifications are not everything, but compare the most expensive Ortofon with any DS Audio cartridge and be prepared to be shocked"

If by such a statement it is meant A/B Compare Cartridges in a End Sound Comparison used on the same audio system, which is a audio System costing close to £200K

No, I meant the exact opposite!  I meant compare the specifications.

You have raised a lot of objections to DS Audio optical cartridges including allegedly poor quality control.  Their specifications are tighter than TOTL Ortofon.

The one objection of yours that I can accept without hesitation is that their sound is not to your taste.  If we all had the same tastes in sound quality, there would be more convergence in the systems we buy and life as an audiophile would be less exciting.

I am yet to read anywhere, a content that is convincing that a DS Audio Cartridge is a betterment over any other Technologies Cartridges

You might care to absorb this article from SoundStage! Hi-Fi | SoundStageHiFi.com - EMM Labs DS-EQ1 Optical Phono Preamplifier.

By way of background, you need to research Canadian brands EMM Labs and Meitner Audio, whose main claim to fame is digital, and in particular Super Audio Compact Disk (SACD), mainly for the professional market.  Founder Ed Meitner's view is that the best audio reproduction is achieved from Direct Stream Digital (DSD)

“I’ll never make a phono stage,” Ed Meitner told me with flat finality. The fact that I was in the midst of a Skype call with Ed and his son, Amadeus, to discuss EMM Labs’ DS-EQ1 optical phono preamplifier was packed with an irony we were all studiously ignoring.

But as our discussion continued, it became clear to me that Meitner the senior views the DS Audio optical cartridge series (see my review of the DS 003 System) as so far above the archetypal magnetic cartridge that they’re not even the same species. So it’s not vinyl that Meitner holds in disregard, it’s the magnetic cartridges employed to scrape off its signal.

Meitner had kept his records, you see, but he no longer played them, viewing DSD specifically and digital in general as far superior playback sources. He’s spent a lifetime working with digital audio, riding far, far ahead of the wave with products like the Museatex Bidat DAC, originally produced in the late 1980s, and he’s moved forward with DSD as his touchstone.

Now there is no way that I am trying to convince you, @pindac, but I would like some clear air to share with others my personal excitement at finding an interesting alternative to the mainstream cartridges.  I hope others might find my documented references to professionally written reviews and articles more convincing than anecdotes.

By the way, I was first alerted to DS Audio's cartridges by the designer and manufacturer of a turntable system from a European country that shares a border with your home country (my guess, anyway!).  Hope that is cryptic enough for your taste ...

@richardbrand Stated " You have raised a lot of objections to DS Audio optical cartridges including allegedly poor quality control "

This is not exactly accurate, I added Copy/Paste extracts from a forum I had followed for approx' 4 Years, to be seen if wanted in the Threads post made on   01-13-2026 at 10:48am. My actions but not my words, they are the words of others in ownership and using the DS Audio Cartridges. 

The Copy/Paste content was supplied solely to offer an alternate view to what was, from a particular forum member an uneducated and derogatory assessment of the Mr Nixie Energizer for DS Audio Cartridges. It spilled over into the concerning about the raised quality issues. As some posters had this info combined, as did some posters have their comparisons to electromagnetic impulse Cartridges combined. 

I stopped using audio media to learn about audio equipment many many years ago, I have sources I trust outside of these biased presentations of products.

In the description given about the modern design Optical Read Cartridge supplied by my friend. The same person has witnessed measurements taken for a DS Audio Cartridge that in his assessment, totally confirm the non linearity of the Photocell and the need to custom produce supporting ancillaries for each Photocell. This person would not comment with such an offering, if the content was not backed by data to show accuracy to the description supplied.

My friend has convinced me that my original inquiry was flawed and that critical parts on a Cartridge are equally important to both designs. Hence, I no longer sought a further substantiation.

My friend more importantly brought forward new to the Thread Information, and this info, due to the description given about witnessed measurements. Leaves me convinced that the modern design Optical Read Cartridge is met with a supporting ancillary is based on the following:

The usual approach to nonlinear circuits, is to bend over backwards to make it seem linear over at least some small range of operation 

I am confident the links to the media coverage clearly is avoiding sharing such pertinent information for the Cartridges function. 

I will visit this thread as a non poster only from here on.

As stated, I remain keen to see another user report on the DS Audio Cartridge.

Old hands will be shaking their heads as history repeats itself.