Turntable Questions

They're an interesting technology, but the system costs more than my turntable at the moment. Rather than use a moving magnet, moving iron or moving coils to electromagnetically generate the output signal, the DS Audio optical cartridges use a mirror attached to the end of the cantilever that reflects the light of two tiny LEDs inside the cartridge. That signal is then sent back to the phono stage where it's converted to an audio signal. Having heard an earlier model, they have excellent tracking ability, better than just about anything I'd heard. But they are cost prohibitive...
 
More of that Pro-Ject rubbish... 😐 They should focus on making good turntables vs. making so many "vanity" tables.
 
They're an interesting technology, but the system costs more than my turntable at the moment. Rather than use a moving magnet, moving iron or moving coils to electromagnetically generate the output signal, the DS Audio optical cartridges use a mirror attached to the end of the cantilever that reflects the light of two tiny LEDs inside the cartridge. That signal is then sent back to the phono stage where it's converted to an audio signal. Having heard an earlier model, they have excellent tracking ability, better than just about anything I'd heard. But they are cost prohibitive...
Reminds me of the old “finial technology” turntable that used a laser to read the grooves in a record.
 
Reminds me of the old “finial technology” turntable that used a laser to read the grooves in a record.
I think someone was still trying to get that system to work better, but I haven't heard about it in ages.

The DS Audio cartridges are still a traditional stylus/cantilever setup, but the innards of the cartridge are completely different. Normally the cantilever would have a magnet on the end of it (moving magnet), or a piece of iron that interrupts the electromatic forces between nearby magnets and coils (moving iron, like Grado or Nagaoka), or actual miniature wound coils that move between a set of magnets (moving coil, like Dynavector, Hana, specific models by Audio Technica, Ortofon, etc.).

DS Audio's system replaces those with a screen that interrupts a light path, with one main advantage being that since the moving mass of the cantilever/stylus assembly is much lower than any of these, it can out-track the other cartridges.

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An added perk is that the front of the cartridge has a small light bar that lights up. 😁

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If it meant Herb-approved, that might be worth it.
They're referring to something like these. Pro-Ject has had graphically-themed turntables...

Metallica Limited Edition Turntable:

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The Debut with the "Beatles: The Singles" theme:

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Or a ridiculous Yellow Submarine:

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And a Debut model with Rolling Stones graphics (I believe this was their first, and released to coincide with some sort of reissue program, as some of these Pro-Ject abominations are):

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Is the Rolling Stones tongue a stylus cleaner? 🤣 I just traded out of a higher-level Pro-Ject back in the summer--it sounded good but for the price, it was too fussy, and had many build quality shortcomings. The SL-1210G I replaced it with pretty much surpasses it in every way, especially in speed stability (the motor in the Grand Class series probably outperforms the cutting lathe motors at this point).

Even Mobile Fidelity has gotten into the high-end turntable business, and this is a sunburst Fender edition. Love the looks of it, but for not much more, one could own a rock-solid Technics Grand Class SL-1200G.

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A Herb edition would probably be the usual Whipped Cream lady and a green background.

An "herb" edition would probably just make me couch-locked, give me red eyes, and have me eating Doritos all day long. 🤣
 
I remember reading somewhere I’m the 80s that he had a $10.000 audio system in his car.
I wish I'd have seen that--car audio has changed by leaps and bounds in recent years, and a lot of those components back then were huge in comparison to what's available today (mainly the power amplifiers and subwoofers--things are downsized these days, and sound better), and CD players first became available in cars around 1985 or so (I owned the first car CD player, a Sony CDX-R7...and like anything Sony, it was not without issues).
 
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