Why did we release the equalizer circuit?

 

At this year’s Munich Audio Show, Soulution officially announced the release of an optical cartridge compatible equalizer. This means that more than 6 brands such as Soulnote, EMM Labs, Uesugi Labs, Meitner audio, Soulution, Westminsterlab, etc. have already released equalizers for optical cartridges.

 

We started disclosing the circuit information of the equalizers for optical cartridges about four years ago.

When we first started disclosing this information, some people asked us, “Why are you disclosing important confidential information? We received various objections such as, “If other companies make equalizers, DS Audio’s equalizers will not sell well. In this issue, I would like to discuss the reasons why we are disclosing equalizer circuit information and promoting other companies to support optical cartridges.

 

Our main goal is to make the optical cartridge, which is currently a “unique” cartridge, a “popular” cartridge along with MM/MC cartridges as a third cartridge. If the optical cartridge is “unique”, it will become a “popular” cartridge.

If the optical cartridge remains “unique,” it may not need an equalizer made by another company. However, to make an optical cartridge a “popular” cartridge, the customer must be able to choose from a wide variety of products to suit his/her needs.

While DS Audio takes pride in its own products as being the best, other brands can bring out the charm of optical cartridges different from DS Audio’s and give them a new appeal. We believe that this diversity will make optical cartridges a more attractive category for our customers and bring them closer to becoming “popular” cartridges. This is the main reason why I have made the equalizer circuit available to the public.

 

From another perspective, I would like to work hand in hand with other brands to make the industry itself more attractive.

The audio industry we are in is generally considered a declining industry, and it is becoming more and more difficult every year. In order to make the industry more attractive, it is necessary for various companies to join hands with each other to make the industry more attractive.

The essential competition for audio products, which are hobby products, are other hobby products (services) such as fishing, cars, social networking, Netflix, etc., in terms of competing for disposable time.

In this sense, we audio product manufacturers should work hand in hand to make the audio market more attractive, not distort it. If audio itself continues to decline in attractiveness, the whole industry will sink. Thus, I do not consider other manufacturers to be competitors at all, but rather to work hand in hand with them to produce more attractive products. Therefore, DS Audio does not receive any license fees when disclosing circuit information, and all technical support during development is provided free of charge. (We do not accept inquiries from the general public due to our lack of resources. We apologize for that.)

 

For this reason and with this in mind, we published information on equalizer circuits on the web about four years ago.

As a result, many brands have commercialized phono equalizers compatible with optical cartridges, and many companies are still developing phono equalizers compatible with optical cartridges.

We are still halfway to our goal of making optical cartridges from unique cartridges to popular cartridges, but we will continue to work steadily, one step at a time.

 

DS Audio CEO

Tetsuaki Aoyagi