What innovative, unconventional cartridge designs can you recommend?

@tcutter 

Have you found that it sounds better after the first couple of albums?

That's a simple question with a complex answer, so far.

What I have found is that the stylus picks up a lot of crud when it 'sees' a record for the first time.  And probably the second time as well.  During the first few days (and that's all I have had with it) I have reverted to inspecting and usually cleaning the stylus after each side.  Mainly I use the DS Audio ST-50 gel device, but it is not very good at removing trailing whiskers.  For them, I am using an Audio Technica brush with as little fluid as I can manage.  Sometimes I can catch a whisker with my fingers 

Because the Holbo has an aluminium platter, I added a Funk Firm 3-mm Achromat vinyl mat to mitigate potential charge migration to records, and to act as a vibration sink.  At first the Achromat was quite warped and, between that and a gunked-up stylus, I could very occasionally hear some mistracking on a couple of organ records.

The Achromat is designed to be stuck to the platter with six adhesive pads, so I added them to correct the warping.  At this point, I had to go back to Sydney so further experimentation has stopped for now.

I believe the stylus shape is contacting different parts of the groove compared with my Micro-Line styli, hence picking up different crud.  I got the same phenomenon when I first switched to Micro-Line styli, which initially needed a lot of cleaning.

My initial impressions are of dramatic improvements compared with my MM set up. I do expect the sound quality to improve as the suspension runs in ...

@audphile1 

There are also other notable differences that contribute to lower noise. I’m not sure how DS Audio does it 

That's why I am looking forward to @rajugsw commenting on DS Audio vs LOMC.

When I auditioned the Holbo deck with the Kiseki blue I was struck by the high amount of quiescent noise.  So much so, I later went back to the dealer to investigate where this was coming from.  The only explanation was the high amount of gain needed with LOMC.  This was before I'd heard of DS Audio.

One way DS Audio gets very low quiescent noise is because the output requires far less gain than other cartridge types - for example 70-mV compared with 5-mV for MM and say 0.2-mV for LOMC.

Muted response to surface noise is helped by low effective tip mass, but probably of much more importance is the fact that the system responds to stylus position, not velocity.  A scratch could cause much bigger changes in velocity than position.  That's my guess, anyway

I have an extremely quiet phono stage. My Hana ML has output level of 0.4mv. The Kiseki Blue you heard has a very similar output of 0.44mv. 
I have virtually no noise on new or NM vinyl. Very superficial levels of noise on VG+ vinyl. 
Sounds like the dealer didn’t match the phono stage with the kiseki. That’s a shame. 

@richardbrand I went back and found your post here where you mentioned the phono stage that was used with the Kiseki. Not familiar with Musical Fidelity but I haven’t read anyone describing the performance of any musical fidelity component as jaw dropping. I suspect that was the culprit for the noisy reproduction. 

@audphile1 

I am used to the noise floor on digital (effectively, none) so I was quite surprised during the audition.  I am used to noise when a record starts playing, but not before.

The Musical Fidelity phono stage must get some share of the 'blame' since it has to do a lot of amplification.  It was the same unit used for a big gala evening for B&W loudspeakers, and I am sure it would have been set up well.  It was either an M8x (fully balanced) or an M6x - just can't remember.  I was more interested in the Holbo.

Footnote:  Have just found out that Musical Fidelity is now owned by Pro-ject.  It could have been the Bose - oops McIntosh - amplifier.  It was not the Samsung (B & W) speakers.