Is there an award that DS Audio’s incredible-sounding and totally unique optical cartridges haven’t won? Three models have earned a trio of further awards from US magazine The Absolute Sound, alongside the ION-001 Ionizer.  

DS Audio’s flagship Grand Master phono cartridge is, justifiably, a multi-award winner. In short, it delivers “the most complete and most realistic reproduction of the music and musicians on LPs JV [reviewer Jonathan Valin] has ever heard.”

The Master 1, one step below the Grand Master is “simply outstanding, setting new benchmarks for vinyl playback in several areas (mechanical silence, neutral voicing and mid-range to mid-bass realism).”

The DS-003, meanwhile, has already won two coveted awards from The Absolute Sound: a Golden Ear Award 2022 and Product of the Year 2022. And with good reason, since this “trickledown masterpiece” sports many of the benefits of the Grand Master for around one tenth of the price. Like the Grand Master, the DS-003 uses ‘third generation’ optical cartridge technology, including a new dual-mono optical/electrical generator with independent LEDs and photodetectors for each channel. As a result, “channel separation is greatly enhanced—to the benefit of soundstaging and imaging.” At the same time, a reduction in mass “improves tracking and lowers noise to a near-inaudible level, increasing resolution and dynamic range”, while thicker wiring and improved equalization “help render tonality in the same lusciously rich, full-bodied, deep-reaching fashion that you hear on the Grand Master, with [open reel] tape, and in life.”

The ION-001 is DS Audio’s fourth award winner. It’s a free-standing ionizer that smooths out tracking by neutralising the static charge of your records. “It also somehow (and more importantly) neutralises timbre, in the sense of bringing tonal balance closer to colorlessly natural top to bottom,” says The Absolute Sound.

Find out more at https://ds-audio-w.biz and locate your nearest UK dealer via distributor www.soundfowndations.co.uk

Discover the complete list of Award winners in the March 2023 issue of The Absolute Sound.