“After setting new standards of fidelity in the ultra-high end with his Product of the Year-winning $15,000 Grand Master optical cartridge, DS Audio’s ingenious Tetsuaki ‘Aki’ Aoyagi has turned his attention to the rest of us,” writes reviewer Jonathan Valin of the $2,500 DS 003.

This “’trickle-down’ masterpiece” features many of the technical innovations first found in the third-generation Grand Master, including a dual-mono optical generator with independent LEDs and photo detectors for each channel, and a beryllium shading plate which reduces moving mass to 1/10th that of a typical moving-coil cartridge.

It is “every bit as standard-settingly quiet, explosively dynamic, and robustly rich in color as its big brother,” writes Valin, and “opens the door—and opens it wide—to a new world of noise-free, tape-like playback, with bass response and treble sweetness and bloom that you could previously only get with reel-to-reel.”

“Another sure-fire nominee for a 2022 TAS Product of the Year Award.”

Read Jonathan Valin’s review in full online at www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/2022-golden-ear-ds-audio-ds-003-optical-phono-cartridge

Find out more about the DS Audio DS-003 optical phono cartridge at ds-audio-w.biz and locate your nearest dealer via UK distributor www.soundfowndations.co.uk/site/Home.html