In his story, “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone,” Arthur Conan Doyle has Sherlock Holmes play a record to fool two criminals into thinking that he is performing Offenbach’s Bacarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann on his violin. After they meet at his 221B Baker Street chambers, Holmes instructs the duo to make themselves at home. “Holmes,” we are told, “withdrew, picking up his violin from the corner as he passed. A few moments later the long-drawn, wailing notes of that most haunting of tunes came faintly through the door of the closed bedroom.” The thieves talk about their plans for disposing of a stolen gem, only to be astonished as the great detective rushes into the room and explains that he was listening to their scheming all the while. “These modern gramophones,” Holmes states, “are a remarkable invention.”
How right he was! Over a century later, even as the once-proud compact disc fades into desuetude, the LP is going strong (its sales are at least triple those of the CD, and new vinyl pressing plants are opening with some regularity). At the same time, top-drawer companies such as Oswalds Mill Audio and Wilson Benesch are taking direct-drive turntables to new heights and barely a month seems to pass when a new tonearm isn’t being introduced. And when it comes to cartridges, there are a bevy of choices from Japan and Europe.
Enter the DS Audio Grand Master Extreme cartridge. A new and improved version of the Grand Master, which was reviewed by my TAS colleague and pal Jonathan Valin, it is an optical cartridge that seeks to operate at—you guessed it—the speed of light. JV was smitten with the cartridge (though he was careful to note that there were theoretical and practical issues with its bass reproduction which he spelled out at some length). The hubbub around the original Grand Master prompted me to purchase it. Then, about a year later, came a call from Musical Surroundings impresario Garth Leerer, who not only extolled the performance of the new version but also suggested that I review it.
The operation of the cartridge has not changed. The CliffsNotes version is that it relies upon two shading plates and two LEDs housed in the cartridge to replicate and transform the movement of the stylus. The shading plate attached to the cantilever in front of the LEDs vibrates with the stylus, producing alternations in brightness that are converted into differing voltages by LED photoelectric sensors for each channel. Those voltages are then minimally amplified and equalized by a separate DS Audio box or, if you prefer, a rival product such as the Meitner equalizer. Other manufacturers have begun to make provision for optical cartridges in their phonostages such as Doshi and Soulution.
So, what’s the big deal with the new and vastly more expensive cartridge? The main alteration boasted by the Extreme version is the introduction of a one-piece diamond cantilever. Most cartridges feature a needle tip and cantilever that are bonded with an adhesive. The single piece, as outlandish as it may seem, has a profound effect on the sound. Forget about break-in. I immediately heard a radical improvement in vinyl playback after mounting the cartridge to the Swedish Analog Technologies CF1-09 tonearm on the TechDas Air Force Zero turntable. It wasn’t simply that detail retrieval was improved or that there was even more dynamic slam. Overall, the biggest change was a drop in distortion and an increase in the sensation of tape-like continuity.
The technology that DS Audio is employing is not new. It dates back to the early 1940s. But like not a few older technologies in the high end, it is only now being properly implemented in its current whiz-bang configuration. The plus side of an optical cartridge is that it eliminates the coils and magnets that weigh down a conventional cartridge. A light beam weighs close to nothing. The result is ultra-quiet backgrounds, slam, phenomenal detail retrieval, and no hum. The downside, as JV observed in his earlier review, is “the way that reading the amplitude of a signal, rather than its velocity, accentuates the bottom octaves.”
This is why DS Audio offers a switch on the rear of its custom EQ box to filter the bass frequencies that are delivered to your phonostage.
As it happens, the bass reproduction was something that wowed me. For the most part I did not feel the need to engage the rear switch to begin truncating the bass frequencies at 50Hz. For example, on songs such as “Limehouse Blues” and “Agitation” on jazz pianist Victor Feldman’s album The Artful Dodger, the bass playing of Chuck Domanico came across as nimble and lithe. There was a real sense of palpability and snap to his playing that can often get lost with other cartridges or phonostages. If anything, I felt that the weight of the bass delivered by the DS Extreme helped prevent the sensation of an attenuation of the lowest frequencies that sometimes occurs with LP playback. Was I a sucker for a pinch of extra bass or was it more akin to the real thing? I thought the latter. Anyway, my sense, for what it’s worth, has always been that digital has a more linear frequency spectrum than LPs, which is also why, at times, it may seem a trifle more sterile. The human ear may not be averse to a few anomalies in sound reproduction—it may even have a slightly titillating effect.
Another jazz album that I recently acquired and listened to is called Great Guitars. Featuring Charlie Byrd, Barney Kessel, and Herb Ellis, it was originally released by Concord records. (Here I feel compelled to give a tip of the hat to Concord LPs, which are pretty inexpensive on the used market—it’s noteworthy, as it were, that the quality of sound, more often than not, has little to do with the actual cost of used LPs, at least in the jazz arena.) I was struck both by the solidity of the soundstaging—each guitar was firmly set in its own acoustic space—and the richness of sound of this live recording. There was a warmth and fullness to the sonority of the three guitars that suffused my basement listening room. Add in the alacrity of the cartridge, and it really seemed to convey you back to July 28, 1974, to Concord California’s Boulevard Park, where this great trio performed to an appreciative audience on that evening. Here I should single out the song “Latin Groove,” which could hardly have sounded groovier. Throughout, the Latin-based sound of Byrd and the more mellifluous sound of Ellis offered a stark contrast that was expertly delineated by the Extreme cartridge.
Something similar occurred on the superb Blue Note re-release of the Pacific Jazz Records 1964 album For Django by guitarist Joe Pass. This was flat out the best I’ve ever heard this classic album sound in terms of presence, dynamics, and spontaneity. The DS Audio’s presentation of the song “Fleur D’Ennui” left me agog at the sheer scale of the proceedings. The blunt fact is that the Extreme cartridge produces a sweeping sonic palette that fills the room, every nook and cranny, with a warm and inviting sound. It’s not that the drums on this number were particularly loud, but they possessed a clarity and snap that offered an exciting backing to Pass’ nifty solo work.
Another guitar recording that I plopped onto the TechDas Zero turntable featured sonatas by Anton Diabelli and Ferdinando Carulli. Performed by Pepe Romero of the legendary Romero family and recorded by Phillips, this exemplary LP highlighted the subtle refinements that the Extreme cartridge could convey with ease. The melodic interplay between the delicate forte piano and guitar was delivered with real panache by the Extreme cartridge, which stinted neither on instrumental timbre nor on rhythmic drive.
When it came to the larger scale works such as Verdi’s overture “The Force Of Destiny,” the Extreme did not falter, either. Instead, the same sense of composure that I had heard with smaller ensembles manifested itself. What was particularly impressive on the Decca recording of Lorin Maazel and the Cleveland Orchestra playing the Verdi overture was the silky sense of continuity that prevailed throughout, no matter how loud the brass unison chords at the outset and end of the piece. Instead of smearing or bloat, the Extreme produced, or seemed destined to produce, thunderous crescendos with precision and oomph.
Perhaps the most representative demonstration of the prowess of the DS cartridge, however, came when I played the Acoustic Sounds 45rpm LP of Shelby Lynne singing “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me.” Maybe not, but I can say that I loved what the cartridge accomplished on such numbers. Everything was laid out so neatly with guitar, drums, and bass in their respective pockets while Lynne’s vocals were perfectly centered. Above all, I was struck by the pristine black backgrounds—no muss, no fuss, just purity of sound emerging from the Avantgarde G3 Trio loudspeakers. This truly was sonic bliss.
But it only seems fair to acknowledge that as taken as I was by the DS, others may not agree. Indeed, my colleague Michael Fremer has some longstanding reservations about optical cartridges. When I recently spoke to him about the optical cartridges, I asked him to spell them out. He observed that “each generation has gotten better. They’ve improved it. The frequency response in the midrange is fantastic. Some people like the extra bass. I still feel it’s at a level that would be unacceptable in most situations. My feeling is records are cut with a velocity-sensitive cutter head. That is the appropriate way to play records back. To me it sounds fundamentally different.”
I understand but do not share his critique. For me, the Extreme cartridge is a remarkable invention. In listening to a variety of LPs, from jazz to classical, from rock to pop, I have consistently been impressed by the ability of the Extreme to deliver not merely a technical but also a musical tour de force.
JV Comments:
I’m tempted to simply add “Ditto” to Jacob’s review, since I completely agree with him that this is the best DS Audio optical cartridge yet (and that the Grand Master equalizer is also the best device of its kind that youthful innovators Aki Aoyagi and his DS team have created). Indeed, the Grand Master EX is the highest-fidelity cartridge I’ve heard, coming far closer, in direct LP-to-open-reel comparisons, to the sound of mastertapes (which are, after all, the documents from which the LPs are made) than any moving-coil, moving-magnet, moving-iron, or strain-gauge cartridge I’ve heard (and I’ve heard a lot of them).
The addition of a single-piece diamond stylus/cantilever is clearly the reason for the EX’s sonic superiority. One has to think that its unitary structure eliminates any spurious resonances that may typically develop at the “joint” between the stylus and the metal or gemstone rod of the cantilever to which it is glued. When you’re using a shading plate fixed to that cantilever to transmit the vibrations of the stylus, any such resonances will affect the precision with which the mix of light and dark mimics the signal engraved in the grooves. You will get some “blur.” And one of the chief boons of the EX is the absence of same, particularly in the bass, which has a three-dimensional solidity and fixity of body and outline and a density of color that come astonishingly close to the sound of the same music on mastertape (and in life). This may be one of the reasons why Jacob did not feel the need to low-pass-filter the bottom octaves. With the Grand Master EX, I didn’t, either—the low end was that much improved.
Indeed, the color and dimensionality of the entire gamut is audibly improved, as is the resolution of performance detail. Like reel-to-reel, the Grand Master EX manages to reproduce things like cymbal taps or the fingering of standup bass strings without making such transient details sound overly emphatic or isolate. My guess is that this has something to with the EX’s smooth, tape-like way with the duration of notes, in which attack, steady-state tone, and decay are reproduced with equal weight as a continuous event rather than as separate, discretely weighted moments.
The result puts me in mind of what I once said about the MBL X-Tremes: Listening to other cartridges is like watching a hi-res movie; listening to the DS Audio Grand Master EX is like going to a play. Flat, often highly detailed images, viewed in near, middle, and far perspectives, become three-dimensional presences on the same stage viewed from the same perspective. Like Jacob, I can’t recommend this supremely lifelike transducer highly enough.
Specs & Pricing
Grand Master Extreme Optical Cartridge
Cantilever and stylus: One-piece diamond
Chassis material: Ultra duralumin
Output signal level: >70mV
Channel separation: >27dB
Recommended tracking force: 2.0g–2.2g
Weight: 7.7g
Price: $22,500
Grand Master Equalizer and Power Supply
Output voltage: 700mV
Input terminals: 1x RCA
Output terminals: 3x RCA, 3x XLR
Impedance: 120 ohms (RCA and XLR)
Dimensions: 2x 425 x 152 x 486mm
Weight: 55.2 lbs. (EQ box), 66 lbs. (power supply box)
Price: $45,000
DS Audio
4-50-40 Kamitsuruma-Honcho, Minamiku, Sagamihara
Kanagawa, 252-0318 Japan
+81-427-47-0900
ds-audio-w.biz
MUSICAL SURROUNDINGS (North American Distributor)
5662 Shattuck Ave.
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 547-5006
musicalsurroundings.com
Latest Videos
By Jacob Heilbrunn
The trumpet has influenced my approach to high-end audio. Like not a few audiophiles, I want it all—coherence, definition, transparency, dynamics, and fine detail.
More articles from this editor
