Optical phOnO cartridge

Jandl Audio Agencies, which started up in 2002 designing and building amplifiers and speakers for sale under the Jandl brand, has now expanded to become a full-line importer and distributor of audio equipment and is now the Australian distributor for Abis, Glanz, Ho’s Audio, Jasmine Audio, Maxonic, Ologe Acoustic and Tiglon. Based in Tasmania, Jandl is owned and operated by John and Lydia Millar. ‘ We are a new audio equipment distributor located in beautiful Tasmania’, said John. ‘ We specialise in unique audio equipment previously not available in Australia and New Zealand. We have sourced true high-end products at reasonable prices and distribute these components through a small but highly professional network of trusted dealers throughout Australia and New Zealand.’ Tiglon cables, which are made in Japan, have copper conductors within magnesium shielding and have been praised by German and US reviewers, as have Abis’ range of tonearms. Ho’s Audio Technologies is one of the few manufacturers in the world that has a licence to manufacture the BBC-designed LS3/5A small monitor loudspeakers, which originally licensed Rogers, Spendor, KEF, Harbeth, Chartwell, and Goodmans to produce them, and this famous model, along with others, is now available in Australia from Jandl. ‘ We believe that top-quality high-end hi-fi equipment need not command stratospheric pricing’, said Millar. Recently arrived at Jandl is the new SA Series of tonearms from Abis, including the SA-1 pictured, which is cut from billet aluminium, has none of the resonances associated with S-shaped arms and is ideal for cartridges such as the Denon DL103, Ortofon SPU and Audio Technica AT150mlx. For more information call Jandl Audio Agencies on (03) 6283 3052 or visit the website at www.jandlaudioagencies.com Japan’s DS Audio, which built the world’s first optical phono cartridge one year ago exclusively for the Japanese market, has now released a new model, the DS-W1, which has already won an Analogue Grand Prix Award (2014) in Japan. Whereas conventional moving coil and moving magnet phono cartridges use permanent magnets and coils of wire to translate movements of the cantilever caused by movements of a stylus in a groove into electrical signals, the DS Audio DS-W1 uses an optical system to convert the cantilever movements into audio signals. The advantage of this system, according to DS Audio, is that it completely eliminates the electromagnetic frictional forces that compromise all moving-magnet and moving-coil designs. ‘ The operation of both MM and MC cartridge designs is governed by Faraday’s law of induction, and so Lenz’s Law must apply in both cases,’ said Boris Granovsky, of Absolute HiEnd. ‘ And Lenz’s Law says that the result of the movement of the coil and magnet will be a separate frictional force that affects the movement of the cantilever, and therefore the movement of the stylus in the groove, meaning that neither an MC nor an MM cartridge can ever reproduce exactly the signal contained in a record groove. DS Audio’s optical system, on the other hand, has absolutely no affect on the vibration of the stylus/cantilever system.’

Unlike previous systems that used lasers to read record grooves, which were non-contact systems, DS Audio’s system is a contact system that uses a conventional stylus and cantilever, so the stylus must be replaced when it becomes worn. Because the optical nature of the system requires power, a special phono preamplifier/power supply is required to be used in conjunction with the DS-W1, but almost any tonearm can be used, so long as it has a conventional four-wire system. In Australia, the DS-W1 cartridge and phono preamplifier/power supply (including RIAA EQ) will sell for around $7,500. For further information, please contact Absolute Hi End on (04) 8877 7999 or visit the website at www.absolutehiend.com