Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

DS Audio's Tetsuaki Aoyagi (Aki) was a certified accountant before joining Digital Stream Co., Ltd. Says Aki, 'I studied accounting and management because I was thinking of starting a business, making products no-one had ever created, but my knowledge of engineering came from product development at DS Audio'.

Aki was not a traditional 'hi-fi guy', but his initiation was also a revelation. 'One day, a company advisor, an audiophile, invited me to listen to some LPs because I had never heard vinyl at that time', remembers Aki, 'the first song he played was Michael Jackson's "Thriller". I was shocked by the sound, so much better than my iPod! I could not believe it.' Watching the LP spin and seeing the cartridge glow, Aki was converted. 'It was a Toshiba C-100P optical cartridge and I asked him why it lit up. He explained the technology and gave me a C-100P.'

Impressed by the long-out-of-production device, Aki thought, 'If I make an optical cartridge with current technology [LEDs and photo-detectors], the sound should be even better. This would make many people happy – just what I was looking for!'. Development of optical cartridges began the very next day, Aki launching the company DS Audio in 2013.