Product Description
The new DS Audio Grand Master optical cartridge is optimized by implementing a new independent (dual mono) LED and photo-detector arrangement for the left and right channels. The cartridge output voltage has greatly increased from 40 mV to 70 mV, significantly more than traditional phono cartridges. With this dramatic increase in output, DS Audio‘s excellent signal to noise ratio has been furthered improved, resulting in an even lower noise floor and greater musical clarity. The new design of the DS Audio Grand Master generator further reduces crosstalk, greatly improving left and right channel separation, specifically above 10 kHz.
DS Audio Grand Master Optical Phono Cartridge System | REVIEW
By Greg Weaver
The hell, you say? An optical phono cartridge? Yes. That’s right; no magnets, no coils, no induction-generated signals for the DS Audio Grand Master Optical Phono Cartridge System. A mechanical transduction system that uses light to regenerate your LP’s audio signal, and as a consequence, is considerably less massive, or lighter, as well!
Before we get into the specifics of how this fascinating approach works, let’s review how more typical phono cartridges, both the moving magnet and moving coil variety, accomplish their goals. The core of a moving magnet cartridge is comprised of a cartridge body that houses a set of stationary wire coils, and a pair of minuscule, powerful permanent magnets attached to the top portion of a cantilever assembly. As the stylus affixed to the bottom end of that cantilever assembly traces the groove, the directed movement of the stylus/cantilever/damper system oscillates the position of those magnets in proximity to the stationary coils. That directed oscillation of the small magnets induces a current in the coils, generating the minute electrical signal that your phono preamplifier uses to reconstruct the audio signal stamped into the LP’s groove.
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