Photo-electric pick-up cartridge and equaliser
Made by: Digital Stream Corporation, Kanagawa, Japan
Supplied by: Soundfowndations Ltd, Berks
Telephone: 0118 9814238
Web: www.ds-audio-w.biz; www.soundfowndations.co.uk
Prices: £11,995/£38,000 (cartridge/PSU & equaliser)

CARTRIDGEDS Audio Grand Master
Following its groundbreaking Master 1 optical cartridge, DS Audio introduces theGrand Master, and a two-box energiser/equaliser, to up the ante even further
Review: Ken Kessler & Paul Miller Lab: Paul MillerIn every field, not just ‘hypercars’and luxury wristwatches, there’s anextreme, cost-no-object pinnacle.
From chefs’ knives to sunglasses
to fishing reels, there are items whichpush engineering and price limits, aphenomenon we are used to in high-end
audio. Thus, with shaking hands (not adesirable state with this item), I installed
the DS Audio Grand Master cartridge, at£11,995 surely the most expensive
pick-up I have ever reviewed, if not themost expensive on the planet.
That’s not all: DS Audio cartridges,
with their ‘optical’ engine, require theirown dedicated energisers and specificequalisation – you certainly don’t feedthese into a conventional phono stage[see PM’s boxout, p47]. To accompany
the Grand Master, there is a brand-new
two-box unit selling for a heart-stopping£38,000, though PM and I were just as
shocked by the weight – a full 25.1kg
for the equaliser and 29.8kg for thepower supply, each occupying a space of
452x152x486mm (whd). Looking at theGrand Master’s energiser/power supply,
you’d think you were seeing a pair of overengineered monoblock power amps. Thefinish, of course, is superlative.

just seven years. Older readers will recall
optical cartridges from a half-century ago,eg, Toshiba’s effort, which were limited by
the technology of the day, but DS Audiohas clearly benefited from all manner ofLED-related developments.
To advance beyond the still-amazing
Master 1, DS Audio graced
the Grand Master withindependent LEDs and photodetectors for the left andright channels. This provides
a claimed 75% boost to thecartridge’s output voltage,
from 40mV to 70mV, also
benefiting the S/N and stereo
separation. Indeed, most impressive of
the sonic benefits here, once past theastounding bass, is the lack of crosstalk[see PM’s Lab Report, p51].
DS Audio also fitted a smaller ‘shading’plate made from 99.9%-pure beryllium,
halving its weight from 1.56mg to 0.74mg.
The company points out that ‘This is lessthan 1/10th of the mass of a typical coreand-coil system found ina traditional MC
cartridge’.

‘I was simply
getting too
emotional tobe critical’

PHOTO BOOST
Before we get to the specifics,
please note two important
aspects of this new flagshipproduct. The first is that every
DS Audio cartridge can work into
any of the company’s energisers.
The second is that there is a trade-in
programme so one can upgrade from,say, a Master 1 [HFN Dec ’17] to the GrandMaster. That said, I may be the only person
alive, outside of DS Audio, silly enough to
try the entry-level DS-E1 cartridge [HFNMay ’19] into the Grand Master energiser,and the Grand Master cartridge into theDS-E1 energiser. But the findings werefascinating, and we’ll get to those shortly.
Back to the Grand Master itself. DSAudio calls it ‘the third generation ofoptical cartridges’, reaching this plateau in

Though not the first to use this as thecantilever material, DS Audio has opted
for diamond, chosen for rigidity, fittedwith a micro-ridge stylus. The original, andstill with the shortest diamond cantileveris Dynavector’s Karat 17D3 [HFN Jul ’12],
though this remains a ‘conventional’ MC...
Meanwhile, DS Audio’s new
cartridge body is fashioned
from ‘Ultra Duralumin’
to maximise rigidity, andthe internal wiring is 1.6x
thicker than that usedin previous models, toreduce its impedance.
Unfortunately, the one
change I would love to have seen has notbeen addressed: the body height remains
abnormally low, and it proves difficult to fit
this to tonearms with tapered barrels thatwiden at the pivot, potentially falling foul
an LP’s edges if lowered to their minimum
height. In such cases a 2-3mm spacer fitted
between the top of the cartridge andunderside of the headshell will effecta solution, though this comes at theexpense of added mass.

ABOVE: Threaded holes in the Grand Master’salloy body allow it to be bolted tight, but theshallow profile requires care in adjusting reararm height. The sapphire and boron cantilevers
used in other DS models are replaced by adiamond rod in this flagship

Reprinted from Hi-Fi News for global distribution | www.hifinews.co.uk

THE EQUALISER
Now let’s take a look at the bulkof the cost in this £50k package:
the two-chassis equaliser andpower supply unit. Connection
is slightly more complex thansimply feeding the tonearm
leads into the back. For openers,
there are three heavy umbilicalcables, two sets generously supplied inboth 500mm and 900mm lengths to aidin siting the two chassis. The two 7-pin
cables connect power to the L/R equaliser
channels, while the central, 5-pin cable
feeds the LED power supply unit.
There’s a choice of three single-ended
RCA and three balanced XLR outputs,
differing by their low frequency cut-off
points – a flexibility it shares with theMaster 1 energiser. The appropriate filter
is selected according to one’s speakers
and system needs [again, see PM’s Lab
Report, p51]. As I auditioned this throughboth Falcon Acoustics’ LS3/5As [HFN Dec’18] and Wilson Sasha DAW loudspeakers[HFN Mar ’19] I had ample opportunity
to try the various options available andcan confirm they will markedly affectbehaviour in the bottom octaves.

CUSTOM MADE
Along with moving to two boxes for thePSU and equaliser, DS Audio has now
utilised custom-made film capacitorsand non-inductive resistors. Inside
the PSU enclosure can be found threetransformers, one for each of the left andright equalisers and the third for the LEDsupply. Overkill perhaps, but the Grand

Master design also includes a claimed 2.34
farads of electrolytic capacitance within
the equaliser and 2.97 farads within thepower supply. Once more, the main gains
over the smaller equalisers were audible
down below, so this package really does
cater for bass obsessives.
Switch-on is via a push button on thepower supply. Both chassis have soft white
power-on lights, which match the lighton the cartridge itself. The lights stay on
for some time after power is switched off,
attesting to the reserves within.

LIGHT THERAPY
While the Grand Master shares thesame LED/photocell concept as all DSAudio’s proprietary pick-ups, the coreinternals of this flagship are both further
miniaturised and separated into a dualmono construction. The white LED at thefront of the pick-up is purely decorative. Inside,
however, not one but two narrow-beam infra-red(850µm) LEDs are positioned between the stylus tip
and cantilever fulcrum, their output deflected by anextremely fine beryllium plate that’s fixed to the rear of thediamond cantilever. The plate modulates the IR light falling
onto two photodiodes, each generating an electrical current
that directly mirrors either the left or right channel signal.
Moreover, as the moving mass of the stylus/cantilever/plate has been reduced in this model, the Grand Master’s

ABOVE: Machined, bead-blasted and anodised
casework hosts the over-sized PSU [bottom]
and energiser/equaliser [top]. They are more
substantial than many a high-end power amp

As mentioned, I tried assorted DS
Audio cartridges with their non-matchingequalisers (non-matching in price, that is).
All the gains and losses were audible when
making such swaps, so you should purchasethe best equaliser you can afford.

LET THERE BE LIGHT
The shocker was trying the DS-E1 cartridge– the company’s least expensive modelat £1010 – into the Grand Master (GM)energiser, rather than when playing the GM

high frequency sensitivity (its response) isfurther extended just as the dual-mono
LED/photocells have reduced any residualcrosstalk [see Lab Report, p51].
But what of the equaliser? A traditional
RIAA phono preamp is designed toaccommodate the velocity-sensitive output
of standard MM/MCs where the signal voltage
increases with groove excursion and, thus,increasing signal frequency. By contrast, DS Audio’s
photoelectric conversion is sensitive only to the amplitudeof the movement of the stylus and requires only a relatively
subtle HF boost to realise a ‘flat’ response with all RIAA preeq’d LPs. Incidentally, the ~70mV output of the photocells iscarried by the L+/R+ cartridge pins while the 12V DC input
to the IR LEDs (and white LED) enters via the L–/R– pins. PM

www.hifinews.co.uk | Reprinted from Hi-Fi News for global distributionCARTRIDGE
cartridge through the DS-E1
energiser, which is also ‘entrylevel’ at £1410. I learned fromthe swaps that 1) the DS-E1– cartridge and energiser – iseven better value than I firstrealised, and 2) that the GM’s
virtues were not masked by
the DS-E1 energiser, even if
it is far less refined than theGM energiser at 27x the price.
Hence, I would posit that thecartridges contribute moreto the overall result than theenergisers, so the best way toapproach DS cartridges if one
wishes to upgrade is to focus
on the cartridges first, andthen the energisers.
Of course, the listening wasdone in balanced, all-Grand
Master mode, and what knocked me out
was the bottom end on the remastered
John Lennon set, Gimme Some Truth[Universal 2435 00198]. Aware that thesewere completely remixed, I listened tothem a few times on my reference system,
rather than recall the originals.

ULTRA VIVID
That aside, the first impression was of anextended, unconfined bass, with ‘Cold
Turkey’ – menacing in any form – acquiring
more mass, more substance. It was arepeat of my earlier experience with theMaster 1. There’s a whole layer of schmutz
removed from the bottom. ‘Clean bass’?
Is it even a thing, compared to ‘clean
treble’? Whatever standard one applies toTETSUAKI AOYAGIABOVE: Gold-anodised plates inside the GM
equaliser connect the six huge electrolytics
feeding each side of the fully discrete, fullybalanced filter and output stage [far right]

the lowest octaves, this cartridge delivers
weight to support all that comes above,
which is a glorious, open, fast sound.
‘Open’ is the crucial adjective, because
this cartridge is so clean, so transparent
that listening into the music is as easily
accomplished as with ½-track reel-toreel tapes from the 1950s. To hear eventhe jaunty ‘Oh Yoko’ – an ode to thewoman responsible for more pretentious,
insufferable noise than anyone I canname – as an irresistible jingle was as
disconcerting as what followed. Let’s notmince words: any old Beatles
fan like me knows Lennon’svoice. And yet these familiar
vocals, via the Grand Master,
were more real, more vivid –the intimacy afforded ‘Oh My
Love’ had Lennon delivered tomy room with such convictionthat I was getting too
emotional to be critical.

Over the last four years DS Audio’sPresident, Tetsuaki Aoyagi, has been
making a list – an Excel spreadsheet
to be precise – detailing all theminor revisions that might add up toa major advantage in the evolutionof the brand’s ‘optical’ pick-up.
‘To improve the S/N ratio we
needed to obtain a higher output
from the cartridge’, says Tetsuaki,‘so we decided to use independent
left and right LEDs and photocells.
The position of these two LEDs couldnow be optimised to achieve a more
substantial output from the cells’.
Tetsuaki also sought to reducethe mass of the moving parts
while improving stiffness with adiamond cantilever. ‘In addition,
the size of the light-shielding plate
was reduced, so the left and rightsounds were less likely to mix andthe separation of high frequencies
would be greatly improved.
‘Sound quality was significantly
affected by the use of solid beryllium
for the shading plate. This pureberyllium material is very expensive[and very difficult to work with],but switching away from aluminium
made such a change to the soundthat everyone could tell thedifference – it was a surprise to me!’.
Tetsuaki’s list extended to every
material in the pick-up. ‘This is
not often mentioned, but by using
stainless steel for the parts that
hold the cantilever, the fulcrum isfully stabilised and the freshness ofthe sound is improved. But if thecartridge body is made entirelyof stainless steel, the sound is too
hard, so we used it only for internal
support and alloy for the shell’. PMBLUES WORKOUTABOVE: Supply unit includes three AC mains
transformers/three banks of electrolytics for theIR LED PSU [centre] and Eq PSUs [top/bottom]

As the next track was his
hateful ‘How Do You Sleep’,grounds enough to think lessof Lennon, I was relieved toturn to something scrappy,
an album one could hardly
call ‘audiophile’, even if I
was listening to the new,superlative edition fromthe Speakers Corner label.
The Paul Butterfield Band’s East-West[Elektra/Speakers Corner EKS-7315] is anoddity: Chicago blues segueing into ‘raga
www.hifinews.co.uk | Reprinted from Hi-Fi News for global distributionLABREPORTDS AUDIO GRAND MASTERABOVE: Rear view of the PSU [bottom] and equaliser [top]. The pick-up’s internal LEDs
are powered via the R– and L– pins while the output is returned via R+ and L+, all via
the ‘Input’ RCAs. Three eq’d line outs, on RCAs and balanced XLRs, offer three bassroll-offs from two different – 30Hz and 50Hz – turnover freqs. [see Graph 1, opposite]rock’. Even so, I sat through thealbum’s title-track closer, normallysomething I eschew because it’s 13
minutes of hippie excess.
On the other hand, it starred theguitars of Mike Bloomfield and Elvin
Bishop, as well as Butterfield’s harp,
so this provided a workout for theGrand Master cartridge above its
bass capabilities and irrespective of
the spatial concerns.

MASTER AT WORK
It’s hard to describe the fluidity
and attack of Bloomfield, whose
legend is slipping out of the public
consciousness simply due to thepassing of time. If you know thework of the also-departed Stevie
Ray Vaughn, you have a handle
on this sort of prowess. For theGrand Master, the transients wereconveyed with absolute precision,
no decay issues, no marring ofeither the clarity or the screech, asrequired. As the solos are identified
in order, one gets to compare
the funkier Bishop with the moreaggressive Bloomfield, and theguitarists among you will even beable to identify the guitars, if not thestring manufacturers. This cartridge
therefore comes across as botha tool for assessment as well as ameans for musical fulfilment.
Another new remastering of noteis The Doors’ anniversary reissue,
Morrison Hotel [Rhino/Electra R2627602]. ‘Roadhouse Blues’, kicked
off what many critics felt was theirbest album to date, raw raunchthat wouldn’t have embarrassed
Butterfield and Co. This, too, wasa showcase for a familiar voice,
Morrison’s nasally sneer not quite
as acidic as Lennon’s but conveyed
with such authority that I was forced
to dig out their eponymous debut[Elektra EKS-74407] and listen to
it in its entirety, transfixed by theGrand Master’s, well, mastery. Yes,
it’s that kind of cartridge.

HI-FI NEWS VERDICTABOVE: The DS GM’s pins are clearlymarked and separated. Just visible is thediamond cantilever, tie-wire suspension
and microridge stylus [see also p47]

DS Audio cartridges are so ghostly
quiet compared to MCs that there
could be culture shock when firsthearing one. I’ll never forsake
Deccas or Koetsus, but the Grand
Master is so truly supreme inresolution, transparency, spatialrecreation, neutrality and anyother parameter I can name thatit’s impossible for me not say
what I usually try to avoid: ‘This
may be the best cartridge I’ve
ever heard.’

Sound Quality: 90%0-------- 100

There are clear parallels between the performance of the Grand
Master flagship, its predecessor the Master 1 [HFN Dec ’17], theDS-002 [HFN Jun ’17] and DS-W2 [HFN Jan ’19] – see boxout,
p47 – but the stiffer diamond cantilever, reduced moving massand dual-mono LEDs/photocells within the GM clearly benefit its
performance. The 2V output (1kHz/5cm/sec) is a function of theequaliser as are the six tailored ‘bass contours’, three rolling off
from a notional 50Hz and three from a lower 30Hz. Output Agives the strongest bass in both 30Hz/50Hz settings [black/greytraces, Graph 1], the former’s +4.3dB/20Hz boost similar to thedefault response of earlier DS pick-ups. Output B/50Hz [dashedgrey trace] gives the flattest bass with Output C/50Hz (–5.6dB/20Hz) proving the ‘safest’ with big, reflex-loaded speakers.
However, it’s the boosted and extended HF response of+3.4dB/20kHz that marks out the GM as the most advanced DS
Audio pick-up to date – its extended bandwidth also reflected inthe 9% THD peak being pushed out from ~7kHz to 10kHz here
[see Graph 2, below]. The dual photocells increase midband
stereo separation by ~5dB to 34dB while the diamond stylus/
cantilever combination offers a more accurate 22o VTA.
Compliance is ‘stiffer’ at 11cu but bodyweight slightly lower at
7.7g so the GM is arguably more compatible with mid/heavy
effective mass arms. Finally, while downforce is increased to 2.1g,
the GM gains little in tracking security, clearing the 75µm groove
pitch (65µm on the left channel), but not making it to 80µm. PMABOVE: Frequency response (–8dB re. 5cm/sec) lateral(L+R, black, Output A/30Hz; dashed, o/p B; dotted,o/p C; grey, o/p A/50Hz; dashed, o/p B; dotted, o/pC) versus vertical (L–R, red, Output A/30Hz)ABOVE: Lateral (L+R, black infill) and vertical (L–R, red)
tracing and generator distortion (2nd-4th harmonics)
vs. frequency from 20Hz-20kHz (–8dB re. 5cm/sec)

HI-FI NEWS SPECIFICATIONSGenerator type/weight

Photo-optical / 7.7g

Recommended tracking force

2.0-2.2mN (2.1mN)

Sensitivity/balance (re. 5cm/sec)

2050mV / 0.30dB (from Eq unit)

Compliance (vertical/lateral)

11cu / 15cu

Vertical tracking angle

22 degrees

L/R Tracking ability

65μm / 80μm

L/R Distortion (–8dB, 20Hz-20kHz)

0.60–8.8% / 0.33–9.2%

L/R Frequency resp. (20Hz-20kHz)+4.0 to –0.5dB / +4.5 to –0.4dB

Stereo separation (1kHz / 20kHz)

34dB / 25dB

www.hifinews.co.uk | Reprinted from Hi-Fi News for global distribution