‘Game-changer’ is something of an over-used term, but in this case it’s completely justified. DS Audio’s new flagship optical cartridge “changes the analog game in profound ways,” says US audio magazine The Absolute Sound, and is “one of the, if not the, best cartridges extant.”

It’s not often you read an award review that opens with, simply, “Gadzooks!”. This one does, and with good reason.

DS Audio’s original flagship optical cartridge, the Grand Master, is already a multi-awarded masterpiece of innovation and performance which has remained, since its inception, in a league of its own. The new ‘Extreme’ upgrade launched by DS Audio in 2023 betters it in one simple and stunning way: with the addition of a one-piece stylus and cantilever carved from a single diamond.

In most cartridge designs the stylus and cantilever are made separately and then bonded together using some form of adhesive. In contrast, the Grand Master Extreme’s state-of-the-art design ensures that, in tracking the intricate vibration of the needle tip, there can be no loss of precision or detail at the stylus/cantilever junction – since there is no such junction – hence the stylus tip can transmit the groove modulation to the cartridge’s optical generator with incredible accuracy.

“Listening to it will no doubt turn almost any analog lover into a adherent of no adhesion, for the results are immediately audible,” says The Absolute Sound. “It is richer, faster and more palpable… The level of micro-detail that it excavates from the grooves is uncanny, rendering the most minute bowing on a cello fully audible. Bass reproduction is stygian and the treble effortless.”

In DS Audio’s Grand Master Extreme “You have one of the, if not the, best cartridges extant.”

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

Discover the full list of Golden Ear Award winners 2023 in the September issue of The Absolute Sound. A longer review of the Grand Master Extreme is forthcoming in the magazine.