What innovative, unconventional cartridge designs can you recommend?

@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.

@dogberry 

Old hands will be shaking their heads as history repeats itself

This is the first time I have seen a self-referential link to an earlier Post in the same Thread!  You can go round and round - is this a record!

I find it interesting that one user complained about a 2-degree error in the stylus alignment.  This is the same error endured twice per side when a record is played using a conventional pivoting tonearm.

As an aside, I have just dialed my anxiety level to near maximum, having today transferred the balance of the DS003 price to an Australian distributor I have only contacted by email, for a cartridge that has yet to land!

Real maximum anxiety was buying a turntable from a country on the other side of the world - a transaction that was absolutely problem free as it turned out.

I wish I could emulate @dover and say the equivalent of "Kia pai tō rā" in one of the 800 or so first nations languages that were spoken when Captain Cook 'discovered' Oz.

@viridian 

Could this be a case of two nations divided by a common language?

I don't think audiophiles should feel free to redefine words which have commonly accepted meanings in a wider context.  As previously noted, The Absolute Sound (TAS) awarded 2025 Innovator of the Year to DS Audio - see TAS-Fall-2025_Innovator-of-the-Year_Tetsuaki-Aoyagi.pdf. This was done while acknowledging the pioneering work of Toshiba in the '70s which in turn was preceded by Philco in the '40s.,

I'd hate if every time I mentioned modern tangential tonearms I should also feel duty-bound to reference a 1920's design which used a 6-foot-long papier mache horn directly amplifying the needle, and floating on two mercury baths.  Fascinating though this is, it hardly influences a buying decision today.

Anyway, this thread has had more legs than expected and is all the better for that ...