DS Audio DS-W2

摘要

When I first heard about DS Audio's optical cartridges, I wrote them off as 'dreamware' unlikely to end up chez Kessler. As it turns out, the audio gods smiled on me and I have, to my surprise and delight, managed to review just about all of them, watching the series evolve while using the Master 1 as my reference. Now, with the DS-W2 selling for £9995 with the equaliser/phono stage, the brand is delivering nearly all the performance of its flagship at half the price. In under five years, DS Audio has revived the optical cartridge - mooted decades ago but only viable now, thanks to LEDs and other developments - and cornered the market for such devices. They are as alien to moving-coils and moving-magnets as are oddities like Londons (nee Decca), Grados and others that choose a different path, but even those involve magnets and coils. However, optical cartridges, by definition, are free of this iron and copper.