Photo-electric pick-up cartridge
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
Price (inc. equaliser): £19,995

CARTRIDGEDS Audio Master 1
DS Audio’s flagship optical cartridge is one of the most expensive we’ve tested – but the£20k price tag includes a dedicated PSU/equaliser. KK rediscovers his LP collection...
Review: Ken Kessler Lab: Paul MillerO

ptical pick-ups were a dream inthe 1960s and 1970s, but they
were hamstrung by the lighttechnology of the era. Weight,
heat, power source – all mitigated against
it. DS Audio, however, has the benefit ofreturning to the concept in the age of theLED, and its parent company is a global
giant making optical sensors. Your £20k for
the DS Audio Master 1 package, then, getsyou cutting-edge design and manufacture
rather than something a boffin cooked
up in a garage. It also pays for the latest
power supply-cum-phono stage, thecartridge not delivering a signal suitable fora conventional MM or MC phono input.

mix and match
All DS Audio cartridges are fully compatible
with any of the company’s accompanying
phono stages/equalisers, so you can mix
and match them, the price breakdown
being DS Audio Master 1 cartridge plus
phono stage/equaliser at £19,995, thecartridge at £8,150 and the phono stage/equaliser £12,695 on its own.
Whether or not one wishes to matchthe dearer cartridge to the lesser unit isbeyond the scope of this review – I didn’t
have the less expensive equaliser to hand –but I would posit that those with sufficientdosh would go the whole hog.
We’ve actually covered these out oforder, because the DS-W1 is the oldest
model still available [HFN Nov ’15] while
the least costly, the DS-002 [HFN Jun’17], is born of the subject of thisreview, the flagship Master 1.
Hence the ‘timeline’ is DS-W1/Master 1/DS-002.
Significant when discussinga system that’s five times thecost of its later sibling are thephysical differences. I realise‘Never mind the quality, feelthe width’ is a silly basis for anargument, but the less expensive of thetwo EQ units weighs 4.7kg, occupies aspace of 310x92x235mm (whd) and offers
only one output configuration via singleended RCAs. The Master 1 equaliser box
weighs 24kg, its size is 436x161x395mm(whd), and the box is filled with a PSU
larger than you might find in a power
amplifier [see inset
picture, p49].
Moreover, it offers
three stages of subsonic
filtering and both singleended and balanced
outputs for each. I swiftly
found out that balanced
was better in every case– more robust and controlled – but thepreferred filtering had to be determined byear on a speaker-to-speaker basis.
The differences reveal themselves in theway the bass behaves for both perceived
extension and control. I found myself
preferring Output 1 with its 6dB/octave
cut-off below 30Hz for the LS3/5As, Output
2 with its double cut-off below 50Hz and30Hz for my KEF LS50s [HFN Jul ’12],
and Output 3 with its triple
cut-off below 50Hz, 30Hz

RIGHT: This shot clearly shows DS Audio’s
solid sapphire rod cantilever, suspended by atie-wire, and fitted with a very fine, micro-ridge
profile diamond stylus

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and then 25Hz for my legacy Quads [alsosee PM’s Lab Report, p51].

turning the screw
Cartridge vs cartridge and not justequaliser is the other issue to address whencomparing the Master 1 to the DS-002.
Both share identical tracking forces (ideally1.7g) and both weigh
8.1g. Construction,
however, is where they
part ways. The DS-002
employs aluminium forits body, the cantileveris aluminium and stylus
has a Shibata profile.
The Master 1 uses Super
Duralumin for its body, has a sapphirecantilever and a ‘micro-ridge’ stylus.
As for set-up, the good news is that you
can tighten the hell out of this thing – I
used TechDAS’s new titanium screws – but
the bad news is that its body is so shallowthat I feared I might have to use a shim
between it and the SME 30/12’s Series
V-12’s headshell. This arm tapers to thefront, and the fat end near the pivot wants
to foul an LP’s lip if it’s set too low.
Also part of the problem is clearing
the cueing bar. It took nearly
an hour of fiddling with it tofind the right arm height. But
please note: this is specific toarms that taper andyours might not cause
any problems in thisparticular respect.
That said, theMaster 1 is not thegreatest tracker I’ve
used, regardless ofthe care you apply insetting overhang andVTA, so certain albums
such as the 45rpm cutof Miles Davis’s Kind Of
Blue [Mobile Fidelity MFSL2-45011] might excite it enoughto generate a wee bit of chatter.
This, however, was so rare anoccurrence that it wasn’t enough to‘The Master 1is as distinctive
as any Decca or
Koetsu or Denon’LEFT: A ‘Super Duralumin’ alloy body andtop plate with threaded lugs ensures theMaster 1 can be bolted tight, though its
shallow profile may necessitate a shim toprevent the back of some arms fouling on
their cueing lift (eg, SME Types IV and V)

This, in turn, led me to running evenostensibly spotless (as well as brand-new)LPs through the Clearaudio Double Matrix
Professional LP cleaner. The DS Audio isfast enough – Decca-like, in fact – to speed
past microscopic clicks, but it’s also soinherently silent that low level tracing
noise isn’t even remotely obscured by
the background grunge/hum that curses
conventional cartridges which (ironically)
can beneficially mask unwanted artefacts.

a spooky feelingmake me lose sleep. In every other way,its conduct was impeccable, not least
because of its primary area of superiority
over MM and MC designs.

uncanny silences
What listeners, when first hearing DS
cartridges, find most disorienting is thisabsolute absence of grunge, hum or otherbackground annoyances. ‘Uncanny’ is aword that springs to mind, while ‘blessed
relief’ and ‘a means of seducing people
away from digital’ also pops up.
I am sure that there are LP fanatics out
there who will dispute this, swearing on
their children’s/parents’/pets’ lives that
their set-ups are silent as the grave. Fine:
I’m ‘deluded’. Me? I have never heard LP
playback, regardless of type or model ofcartridge or phono stage that is utterly
hum or hiss-free. OK, so the very best ones
require you to put ear-to-speaker to hearit, but the schmutz is still there. The DS
Audio system does away with this.
LPs used for my reviewing included
the aforementioned Miles Davis LPs,
Bobby Darin’s (mono) That’s All [BoxstarBST 3008-1], Judee Sill’s eponymous
debut on 45rpm LPs [Intervention IR016], Dusty In Memphis, also 45rpm[Analogue Productions APP 8214-45], and– appropriately – Simon & Garfunkel’s The
Complete Columbia Albums Collection[Columbia/Legacy 88875049671].
Between the tracks on all of these, theDS Master 1 was a silent as a CD. Asidefrom any noise in the electronics,eg, valve humor whoosh, allthat you’ll hear
beyond themusic are any
pollutants lefton your LPs.

A LIGHT IN THE DARK
Inside the Master 1 light from an LED shines on a very
sensitive photocell. This generates an electrical current
that’s modulated by a vibrating sapphire cantileverinterrupting the light path. It’s a derivative of thetechnology used in optical pick-ups for guitars and in
optical mice and is powered by an external supply [seeinset picture] which also serves to equalise the pick-up’s
return feed. The picture shows the solid copper plates connecting no fewer thansix 120,000μF reservoir capacitors per channel inside this OTT power supply!
Traditional MM/MC pick-ups are velocity-sensitive devices whose voltage
output not only increases with groove excursion but also with frequency (as thestylus moves more quickly). By contrast, DS Audio’s photo-electric conversion issolely sensitive to the amplitude of the movement of the stylus. However, as LPs
are cut with the RIAA replay characteristic then both MM/MC and optical pick-up
types still require equalisation before the audio signal is passed to a standardline-level pre or integrated amplifier. PMIt is this background silence, rather than
the audible sonic personality per se thattakes so much getting used to after alifetime with normal cartridges. All I could
liken it to was the experience of listening
to the infamous Finial laser turntable,
which also exhibited ghostly, CD-likesilences between tracks. How much of thisis due to the actual technology of optical
cartridges, and how much is accounted forby the energiser/phono stage is impossible
to determine, because one cannot run thecartridge into a conventional RIAA stage. It
was also quieter than its siblings.
Undeniably, the energiser for theMaster 1 is more highly-specified andover-engineered thanthe less expensivemodel, and it must
contribute to thebetter performance.
Owners of DS-002s
might wish to try theMaster 1 equaliser
box before upgrading
their cartridges.
Noiselessbehaviour by now
accepted, I focusedon the music,
especially female
vocals – Mesdames
Sill and Springfield– which enjoyed a naturalness enrichedby the breathiness the Master 1 revealed.
This was more prominent with Dusty
over Judee, but both LPs also acquired an
openness and lack of artifice due only inpart to the cleanliness of the sonic arena.
‘Son Of A Preacher Man’ has its own
funky/spooky feel – for some reason, it
makes me think of the rather morbid ‘OdeTo Billy Joe’ in its swampiness – but the

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DS Audio Master 1

ABOVE: Front [top] and rear [bottom] views of the massive Master 1 PSU/equaliser.
The pick-up’s internal LED is powered via the R– and L– pins while the output isreturned via R+ and L+ using the ‘Input’ RCAs. The three equalised outputs, on RCAs
and XLRs, offer progressively steeper LF roll-offs [see Lab Report, adjacent]benefits bestowed upon it by thecartridge went beyond the realism inthe vocals.
For this release and the rest,
aside from the mono Darin LP,
the DS Audio Master 1 spread thesoundstage beyond the speakers
with efficacy to match a London(Decca) Gold. It lacks a bit of that
cartridge’s sparkle, which may or
may not be an artificial trait, and thiswas easy to detect on Simon andGarfunkel’s ‘Mrs Robinson’, or Darin’s‘Beyond The Sea’. The upper reaches,though, were consistently silky andsibilance-free.

real personality
While the best analogy I cansummon is Champagne vs Prosecco,that’s a debate I’d rather not enter.
Suffice it to say, the DS Audio Master1 (and its siblings) is as distinctive
and instantly identifiable as any
Decca or Koetsu or Denon, and thiswill determine its suitability in yoursystem according to your own tastes.
That may sound like a cop-out, but
this cartridge’s personality is as
overwhelming as the sound of anelectrostatic, horn or ribbon speaker.
As I soon learned, it’s also
absolutely non-fatiguing. I try tobudget my time wisely, but I foundmyself staying up until 3am for six
nights in a row, playing in excess of
50 LPs, rediscovering old favourites
as well as undergoing revelations
with discs I had taken for granted.
The Simon & Garfunkel titles
showcased the Master 1’s
coherence, allowing the harmonies
to blend, while remaining separate
enough to focus on one or the other.
Acoustic guitars oozed with woody

resonance, while the piano in ‘Bridge
Over Troubled Water’ grew instature and majesty.
Is there a downside to this, once
you get past the unanticipatedsilences? Leaving cost aside (I am
continually berated for ignoring thefact that yes, there are people who
can afford such cartridges and care
not for my concerns about value-formoney) there is only one aspect of
the Master 1 with which I find issue.
In part, it’s because I am
schizophrenic enough to love bothDeccas and Koetsus, the former
pick-up for excitement and the latterfor warmth. In a Venn diagram,
this cartridge would appear in aquadrant diametrically opposed tothe Koetsu (the Decca would occupy
a diagram all its own – it is to therest of the world’s cartridges what
Lambrusco is to still red wines).
The two create a brain versus heartdichotomy. So call me a slut: I love’em both.

Bearing in mind that the flagship Master 1 was used to derive
the newer, trickledown DS-002 [HFN Jun ’17] it has less incommon with the DS-W1 [HFN Nov ’15]. Specifically, with arecommended downforce range of 1.6-1.8g and tested at
1.7g, the Master 1’s ‘micro-ridge’ (line contact) stylus was notquite as secure a tracker as the DS-W1. While the latter cleared
the maximum 80µm groove pitch and the most severe +18dB
modulation (315Hz lateral cut, re. 11.2μm) at just 0.5% THD,
the Master 1 and DS-002 are secure to +15dB but ‘let go’ at themaximum +18dB groove modulation. Output is a full 1.55V via
the equaliser (re. 1kHz/5cm/sec) – ideal for line-level inputs.
The Master 1’s 8.1g bodyweight is offset by a low-ish
15/20cu dynamic compliance, conferring a low ~9Hz subsonicresonance in medium mass arms. As a matter of design, bass
output is strong and reaches +4.7dB/20Hz via Output 1 (1storder 30Hz roll-off), +1.4dB/20Hz via Output 2 (50Hz and 30Hzroll-offs) and +0.3dB/20Hz via Output 3 (50Hz, 30Hz and a 2ndorder 25Hz roll-off). So the latter Output 3 [see Graph 1, below]
would be the prudent choice when partnering with big, reflexloaded loudspeakers! Otherwise the Master 1 shares the same
boosted presence band and high treble we saw with the DS-002,
but this ‘loudness contour’ shows excellent symmetry between
in- and out-of-phase cuts, conferring a very uniform colour acrossthe soundstage. As, I might add, does the similarly uniform trendof distortion versus frequency [Graph 2, below] – an excellent
result with any very high frequency distortion tamed by the pickup’s post-20kHz treble roll-off. PMABOVE: Frequency response curves (–8dB re. 5cm/sec) lateral (L+R, black, Output 1; dashed, Output 2;
dotted, Output 3) versus vertical (L–R, red, Output 1)

HI-FI NEWS VERDICT
After years of using only MCs, andfollowing a month with Koetsu’s
Onyx, the DS Audio Master 1 wasa shock because its presentation
was so clean and noiseless –even more so than its siblings.
It requires the listener to dispel
any preconceptions about vinyl.
It has speed, detail and space
to rival Deccas. The sacrifice forthis is a trace of warmth... sowear a cardigan. Believe me: thiscartridge is phenomenal.

Sound Quality: 88%
0-------- 100

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 / 8.1g

Recommended tracking force

1.6-1.8mN (1.7mN)

Sensitivity/balance (re. 5cm/sec)

1550mV / 0.50dB (from Eq unit)

Compliance (vertical/lateral)

15cu / 20cu

Vertical tracking angle

25 degrees

L/R Tracking ability

75μm / 70μm

L/R Distortion (–8dB, 20Hz-20kHz)

0.4–15% / 0.5–5.6%L/R Frequency resp. (20Hz-20kHz)+2.5 to –9.5dB / +8.1 to –0.5dB

Stereo separation (1kHz / 20kHz)

30dB / 6dB

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