The way in
DS-E3
Elliptical stylus on an aluminum cantilever; the compact equalizer with two bass settings. Everything the optical idea does, at the entry price.
DS Audio at Pearl Audio · Portland
DS Audio of Tokyo makes the only optical phono cartridges in production: a light and a shadow in place of magnets and coils. The result is a cartridge with almost nothing moving, a background quieter than any coil, and an ease that people hear in the first bar.
We carry the whole range, from the DS-E3 to the Grand Master, and fit it to the Linn Sondek LP12 as well as to Rega, Technics and other decks. Because every DS Audio equalizer works with every DS Audio cartridge, the range is a ladder you can climb one piece at a time, and this page lays it out that way.
How it works
Every ordinary cartridge is a small generator: a magnet or a coil moves with the stylus and induces a voltage, so the cantilever has to carry that weight and the signal comes out as a few tenths of a millivolt. An optical cartridge does neither. A tiny LED inside the body shines on a photocell, and a feather-light shading plate on the cantilever moves in the beam. The stylus moves, the shadow moves, and the photocell’s output follows it. Nothing on the cantilever generates anything, so the moving mass is a fraction of a moving coil’s and the output is around 70 mV, more than a hundred times a typical coil.
The one consequence is that an optical cartridge reads the groove’s displacement rather than its velocity, so a normal RIAA phono stage will not do. DS Audio’s equalizers power the LED, read the photocell and apply the correct curve, and their output goes to any line input on your amplifier. There is no phono stage in the chain and nothing to load or match. Any DS Audio equalizer works with any current DS Audio cartridge, which is what makes the range a ladder: you can climb it one piece at a time.
The range
Each level is a cartridge and an equalizer designed together. Buy them as a system, or either one alone: a cartridge for an equalizer you already own, or an equalizer to step up under a cartridge you keep. Prices are the US retail prices.
The way in
Elliptical stylus on an aluminum cantilever; the compact equalizer with two bass settings. Everything the optical idea does, at the entry price.
The middle of the range
Line-contact stylus; a hand-built equalizer with four low-cut settings. The level most of our customers choose, and the one we fit most to the LP12.
Most of the flagship
Boron cantilever and a full-size balanced equalizer with XLR and RCA outputs. Reviewers heard it as close to the flagship for a fraction of the price.
The semi-flagship
Square-section diamond cantilever; a dual-mono, three-transformer equalizer. One of the quietest backgrounds in analog playback.
The reference
Cantilever and stylus cut from one piece of diamond; a two-chassis equalizer with its own power unit. DS Audio’s statement.
Tube equalizers
Both work with every DS Audio cartridge. Choose one instead of the level’s own equalizer when you want the character of tubes in the chain.
Around the turntable
Record and stylus care from the same engineers, for any turntable, optical or not.
Choosing
If you have never heard an optical cartridge, start with a system. The DS-E3 System is the least expensive complete way in, and the DS 003 System is the one we recommend most: it is the level at which the quietness and ease that define these cartridges are fully there, and it is the one we fit most often to the Sondek LP12.
If you already own a DS Audio cartridge, the equalizer is where the next step lives. Moving from a level’s own equalizer to the one above it, or to the DS-W3 or Master3 equalizer, changes more than the cartridge does, because the equalizer is doing the work a phono stage normally does and then some.
If you already own a DS Audio equalizer, any cartridge in the range drops straight in. Styli wear like any other, and when the time comes a step up the ladder costs no more than a replacement would.
Every DS Audio cartridge is fitted and aligned here, on your arm, and the equalizer’s low-cut setting is chosen for your turntable and your room. On a Sondek LP12 the DS 003, DS-W3 and Master3 systems are options in our LP12 builder.
Hear it in Portland
The quickest way to understand an optical cartridge is to hear a record you know well on one. Call or write, tell us what you play it on now, and we will set up a DS Audio system in one of our two listening rooms in the Pearl District.
1038 NW Johnson St, Portland · Mon–Sat 10–5:30 · Established 2005
