Dear @mijostyn : "" be very suspicious of any component that stands out sonically in dramatic fashion. It is likely to be very colored, not realistic but surrealistic. I have gone down that road in the past and in every case tired of the sound with more experience. ""
The time almost always tell us that your statement is true.
The DaVa designer is a very enthusiastic gentleman with more enthusiasm than really deep knowledge levels in de overall cartridge operation subjects.
For years he builded several cartridge prototypes of the Neumann cartridge, so the wrong path of the cantilever-less characteristic came from there when not only Neumann or Ikeda really were nota a wallop true success. That is a fact and Ikeda confirmed when just forgeret on the cantilever-less and started again with cantilever cartridge designs. Now, no one knows about till it try it or some one design it and listen to it, so the Ikeda " adventure " with was and is welcomed always as the Neumann one.
I have to say that with my first hand experience with the Ikeda cantilever-less in my system I experienced that " wallop ", surprise and high enthusiam that I even said that design was " prodigious " at least. I owned 3 different Ikeda and the best experiences were through the REX9 paired with the Mission The Mechanic tonearm ( in those times I owned over 20 different tonearms, good top tonearms. Well, not all.) and after some time all the Ikeda samples just gone when I learned that that was a wrong path and now I don't think I'm ready to try it again. As you, "" I find it's design clashes with my own perception of physics. "" and common sense.
Other that the manufacturer low knowledge level of low tracking abilities of his cartridge design that's a " heavy " penalty that no field coil principle can fix it there are other " mistakes " ( for me ) or more than mistakes questions: why 4 different power suplies? why an after market additional cartridge filter? why cactus?
Always a " new kid in the...." is welcomed, especially the field coil principle that's what really moves my curiosity to listen the Audio Note due that I listened the normal I/O and still remember its very good quality level along the @larryi positive post with his experiences with this new field coil design that other than that is exactly the I/O cartridge. I don't know yet its price.
About your DS experiences good to know what you posted:
"" However this was not in my own system but in systems that were significantly inferior. "
As you now the strain gauge design is just like the DS an amplitude sense instead velocity but here is a big BUT: DS plays inside the rules in specific the RIAA inverse eq..and that's why we need a phono stage with RIAA to runs the DS. In the other side PL choosed to plays with his own " business man " rules and the cartridge design does not conforms with the RIAA and from there comes that " terrible " brigthness you experienced but several audiophiles love it.
R.
