Post by Bigman80 on Jun 30, 2021 14:22:14 GMT
The HIFI world is one of the weirdest environments I have ever been involved in. Regardless of the amount of money people have, or may be willing to spend, there seems to be absolutely no emphasis or desire to buy something based on its ability to actually do the job you need it to do.
Here is an example:
Enter the DS Audio DS-E1 Optical Cartridge.
Not something I was familiar with until I was sent a link to a YouTube video posted by "Sonic Flare". On there, an excited gentleman proclaims: "The best ever, no joke!" Further proclamations of its utter brilliance fill the 29.35min video, with further nuggets like "I have thousands invested in my turntable, and for £2299.00 This setup has blown it away"
Or words to that effect. You get the idea. So, obviously with proclamations of such grandeur, I thought it may be worth a bit of investigation.
With all this Enthusiasm on show, I thought I had better have a look. So after giving my chief Cartridge advisor a nod as to what I was looking into, I set about it.
The first thing I noticed about this DS Audio DS-E1, was that unlike normal/conventional carts, it uses a cantilever with a small plate on the top. This in turn has an LED pointing at it, which then casts a shadow on to two photo cells. A video can be seen here: www.ds-audio-w.biz/optical-cartridge-basicprinciple/
Marvellous isn't it! The guy in the YT video describes this as "A disruption to technology"
He really is very enthusiastic.
I found all of this to be quite interesting, so just as I was about to set off into the wormhole of internet investigation, I get a message from Phonomac:
"the performance is dismal: distortion of 16% at 8kHz, frequency response 20 Hz – 20 kHz of +8dB – 7.5dB (+8 at 12 kHz, –7.5 at 18 kHz, with a bass boost of +4.5 dB at 20 Hz) & mismatched channels"
To be fair, there was a bit more, but as you can see, he was not impressed. Neither was I from what I was seeing here:
www.hifinews.com/content/ds-audio-ds-e1-cartridge-lab-report
Being a glass half full type, I knew this was the entry level model so sought out the TOTL version - The DS-W2. Well, I'm afraid it's not much better reading for that one either:
www.hifinews.com/content/ds-audio-ds-w2-cartridge-lab-report
As you can see, the performance for both systems is utter rubbish. So the price for these must be pretty low? Well the DS-E1 is £2299.00 and the DS-W2 is £10k....yes, you read that right. £10k!
"Distortion of 16% at 8kHz"
To put that into context... most vintage valve amplifiers have distortion of <1%
"Disruptive Technology"?
Well, i have just gone through about 25 phonostage reviews and not one of them has distortion at 16% anywhere in the audible frequency range, and despite them being quite far from what i'd call accurate, none of them were anywhere near as bad as the graphs shown in the DS reviews.
I'd like to know how this would be, or even could be classed as Disruptive. It's only disrupting your wallet and your frequency response.
Why would anyone buy this piece of crap?
Here is an example:
Enter the DS Audio DS-E1 Optical Cartridge.
Not something I was familiar with until I was sent a link to a YouTube video posted by "Sonic Flare". On there, an excited gentleman proclaims: "The best ever, no joke!" Further proclamations of its utter brilliance fill the 29.35min video, with further nuggets like "I have thousands invested in my turntable, and for £2299.00 This setup has blown it away"
Or words to that effect. You get the idea. So, obviously with proclamations of such grandeur, I thought it may be worth a bit of investigation.
With all this Enthusiasm on show, I thought I had better have a look. So after giving my chief Cartridge advisor a nod as to what I was looking into, I set about it.
The first thing I noticed about this DS Audio DS-E1, was that unlike normal/conventional carts, it uses a cantilever with a small plate on the top. This in turn has an LED pointing at it, which then casts a shadow on to two photo cells. A video can be seen here: www.ds-audio-w.biz/optical-cartridge-basicprinciple/
Marvellous isn't it! The guy in the YT video describes this as "A disruption to technology"
He really is very enthusiastic.
I found all of this to be quite interesting, so just as I was about to set off into the wormhole of internet investigation, I get a message from Phonomac:
"the performance is dismal: distortion of 16% at 8kHz, frequency response 20 Hz – 20 kHz of +8dB – 7.5dB (+8 at 12 kHz, –7.5 at 18 kHz, with a bass boost of +4.5 dB at 20 Hz) & mismatched channels"
To be fair, there was a bit more, but as you can see, he was not impressed. Neither was I from what I was seeing here:
www.hifinews.com/content/ds-audio-ds-e1-cartridge-lab-report
Being a glass half full type, I knew this was the entry level model so sought out the TOTL version - The DS-W2. Well, I'm afraid it's not much better reading for that one either:
www.hifinews.com/content/ds-audio-ds-w2-cartridge-lab-report
As you can see, the performance for both systems is utter rubbish. So the price for these must be pretty low? Well the DS-E1 is £2299.00 and the DS-W2 is £10k....yes, you read that right. £10k!
"Distortion of 16% at 8kHz"
To put that into context... most vintage valve amplifiers have distortion of <1%
"Disruptive Technology"?
Well, i have just gone through about 25 phonostage reviews and not one of them has distortion at 16% anywhere in the audible frequency range, and despite them being quite far from what i'd call accurate, none of them were anywhere near as bad as the graphs shown in the DS reviews.
I'd like to know how this would be, or even could be classed as Disruptive. It's only disrupting your wallet and your frequency response.
Why would anyone buy this piece of crap?
