“How to upgrade the ‘ultimate’ optical pickup?” ponders Ken Kessler in the October issue of Hi-Fi News. DS Audio’s Grand Master is already peerless in both technology and sonic performance and yet, with a single change, designer Tetsuaki Aoyagi has once again upped his own game.

The change in question is the incorporation of a single-piece diamond cantilever and stylus. Kessler opens by admitting an assumption that this review would be “a breeze” involving “a simple side-by-side shoot-out” with the original Grand Master (which the Extreme aims to better, but does not replace: the original remains very much available). So, Kessler’s question was a simple one: does the Extreme better the original Grand Master? Getting his head around the answer, however, took him rather more ‘work’ than expected.

“So vivid were the gains, despite nearly identical measurements and my initial disbelief that something as seemingly minor as a single-piece stylus/cantilever could up the performance over a glued-in stylus, that I spent disproportionately more time assessing the Extreme than I had initially expected.”

The original Grand Master is already such a high performer that Kessler “found nothing in its behaviour that I thought might need taming, polishing or refining.” Indeed, in an earlier review he wrote “This may be the best cartridge I’ve ever heard.” And yet now he found himself “stunned by the Extreme’s ability to extract even more from the grooves” with “the precise sorts of nuances which separate two vintages of the same wine.”

The final conclusion? “I cannot deny: the Grand Master Extreme is even better.”

There is, however, one caveat. “It should come with a warning,” says Kessler. “You need to bring plenty of food and drink into your listening room because you will not want to leave.”

Interestingly, Kessler’s review also unpacks precisely how and why DS Audio’s optical designs deliver such high levels of performance compared with traditional MM and MC phono cartridges.

In the meantime, designer Tetsuaki Aoyagi continues, as always, to push forward with his R&D. “We are now experimenting with alternative light sources and photo-detectors” – from “using a lens to focus the light to a more stable intensity”, to “using photo-detectors that offer faster response times and lower noise,” he explains.

“Watch this space!” advises Kessler.

Read Ken Kessler’s review in full in the October issue of Hi-Fi News.

Find out more at https://ds-audio-w.biz and track down your nearest dealer via UK distributor Sound Fowndations.