From David: "We have not had any experience with trying these cartridges out on vintage tonearms and there are not any compliance specifications on the DS Audio website. Reading reviews, most reviewers have found them to have a stiffer compliance meaning they are most effective with medium to higher mass tonearms."
The rules of compliance and tonearm mass still apply whether it's a vintage arm or a modern arm. Just make sure your bearings are ok in a vintage unit. I have a Denon DL110 MC cartridge fitted to a 53 year old pioneer PL12 D and it's a match made in heaven.The only issue you may have is VTA as the DS Audio cartridges are not as tall as a regular MM or MC cartridge and if your arm ain't got VTA adjustment you may need to fit spacers to your headshell. Good luck ☺
What about what Grado is doing,their system use a varable resistance system by compressing a material similar to old cristal cartrige (no magnets no coils involved)what is the stress on the cantelever compare to Mc or MM cartriges ? Bye. Lucien.
From David: "We are not familiar with Grado's efforts in the cartridge you described. I did finda description of rebuilding an old Philco cartridge (philcoradio.com/library/index.php/shop-talk/syls-restoration-topics/crystal-cartridge-rebuilding/) that used a crystal and compressed it to generate voltage. I just don't think their output was 70 millivolts which is a low noise floor advantage of the optical cartridges. I also don't know if it was an amplitude proportional generator which gives the optical cartridges an advantage in linearity. As far as stress on the cantilever, DS Audio cartridges track in the range of two grams and they all weigh either 7.7 or 7.9 grams." Thanks for watching!
That's a great option at the price, though the DS Audio cartridges are definitely a big step up sonically. They should be for a starting price of around $2,000 though 😁
Using light to determine the vibration is obviously a brilliant move. But why in the world don't you then not just extract that in digital, skip the analog phono preamp and instead just translate it to standard digital audio that can go in to any standard DAC?! You could apply DSP to level any issues inherent to the medium and related recording practices. Just install a more accurate sensor and sample at a crazy rate and no way you would not exceed humen sensory capability by a long shot. Make the DSP an external box if you want to sell an extra box and allow for 3d party contributions.
The whole idea of the optical cartridge is that it modulates the amount of light reaching the photo diode as an analog of the record groove. To then digitize this analog signal would degrade it (maybe not much if it were a DSD or 192k), but still degrade the signal. The signal from the optical cartridge is a lot higher voltage than a traditional moving coil or even a moving magnet cartridge so signal to noise ratio is not a factor in the optical cartridge processor plus the equalization required is a lot milder than the RIAA equalization in a normal phono preamp. Keeping everything analog with the optical phono system is what makes it so desirable.
As mentioned in the video, this cartridge's technology was invented before digital existed. So it is not in any way a digital device that has a digital output to be fed into a DAC and/or played around with DSP. Its output is a constantly varying voltage just like an MM or MC cartridge. They just generate that voltage with LED's and photo sensors instead of magnets and coils. Extracting the signal in digital is not as simple as it may seem, and would require a high quality A2D converter. If you prefer digital files, it would be far simpler to just purchase high-res/DSD files rather than vinyl in the first place.
I could listen to David talk about analog all day....
Excellent video. Most informative, guys!
Good job guys
Thank you very much for making such a great video!! We really appreciate it.
How does tonearm compliance come into play with DS Audio cartridges? Do they pair well with vintage tonearms? Great video
I'll relay your question to David once he is back in the store on Saturday and get back to you. Thanks for watching!
From David:
"We have not had any experience with trying these cartridges out on vintage tonearms and there are not any compliance specifications on the DS Audio website. Reading reviews, most reviewers have found them to have a stiffer compliance meaning they are most effective with medium to higher mass tonearms."
@@HiFiBuys thank you for the information.
The rules of compliance and tonearm mass still apply whether it's a vintage arm or a modern arm. Just make sure your bearings are ok in a vintage unit. I have a Denon DL110 MC cartridge fitted to a 53 year old pioneer PL12 D and it's a match made in heaven.The only issue you may have is VTA as the DS Audio cartridges are not as tall as a regular MM or MC cartridge and if your arm ain't got VTA adjustment you may need to fit spacers to your headshell. Good luck ☺
What about what Grado is doing,their system use a varable resistance system by compressing a material similar to old cristal cartrige
(no magnets no coils involved)what is the stress on the cantelever compare to Mc or MM cartriges ?
Bye.
Lucien.
From David:
"We are not familiar with Grado's efforts in the cartridge you described. I did finda description of rebuilding an old Philco cartridge (philcoradio.com/library/index.php/shop-talk/syls-restoration-topics/crystal-cartridge-rebuilding/) that used a crystal and compressed it to generate voltage. I just don't think their output was 70 millivolts which is a low noise floor advantage of the optical cartridges. I also don't know if it was an amplitude proportional generator which gives the optical cartridges an advantage in linearity. As far as stress on the cantilever, DS Audio cartridges track in the range of two grams and they all weigh either 7.7 or 7.9 grams."
Thanks for watching!
Nagaoka mp-200 under $500. Can replace stylus for under $175.
Sounds amazing can't beat it price for sound.
That's a great option at the price, though the DS Audio cartridges are definitely a big step up sonically. They should be for a starting price of around $2,000 though 😁
Using light to determine the vibration is obviously a brilliant move. But why in the world don't you then not just extract that in digital, skip the analog phono preamp and instead just translate it to standard digital audio that can go in to any standard DAC?! You could apply DSP to level any issues inherent to the medium and related recording practices. Just install a more accurate sensor and sample at a crazy rate and no way you would not exceed humen sensory capability by a long shot. Make the DSP an external box if you want to sell an extra box and allow for 3d party contributions.
The whole idea of the optical cartridge is that it modulates the amount of light reaching the photo diode as an analog of the record groove. To then digitize this analog signal would degrade it (maybe not much if it were a DSD or 192k), but still degrade the signal. The signal from the optical cartridge is a lot higher voltage than a traditional moving coil or even a moving magnet cartridge so signal to noise ratio is not a factor in the optical cartridge processor plus the equalization required is a lot milder than the RIAA equalization in a normal phono preamp. Keeping everything analog with the optical phono system is what makes it so desirable.
As mentioned in the video, this cartridge's technology was invented before digital existed. So it is not in any way a digital device that has a digital output to be fed into a DAC and/or played around with DSP. Its output is a constantly varying voltage just like an MM or MC cartridge. They just generate that voltage with LED's and photo sensors instead of magnets and coils.
Extracting the signal in digital is not as simple as it may seem, and would require a high quality A2D converter. If you prefer digital files, it would be far simpler to just purchase high-res/DSD files rather than vinyl in the first place.