DS Audio Optical for sale
Equalizer, no cartridge
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?
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- 428 posts total
@pindac I interpret the following sentence
to mean "You are 100% welcome to try and negotiate our price", whereas the follow-up
means "We will ignore your silly offer and give you $100 off". As for the "!", recently I was corresponding with a business in the UK. I had to make an actual effort to not use exclamation marks or emojis! 😃 |
From where I sit, it seems there are more different optical cartridge equalizers on the market than there are optical cartridges. Is that a fair conclusion? Essentially, only DS Audio make optical cartridges, but at least 3-4 different companies make equalizers. Seems like the market for them, which depends upon ownership of an optical cartridge to begin with, is oversubscribed. |
- 428 posts total