New DS Audio ES-001 – Eccentricity Detection Stabilizer

All Image Credit: DS Audio

DS Audio are probably best known in the audiophile world for their range of optical cartridges like their top-of-the-line Grand Master. So after perfecting the optical cartridge DS Audio has now added the ES-001 eccentricity detection stabilizer to its list of innovative audio products.

Turning their attention to additional methods of improving vinyl playback, DS Audio has introduced an unique way of reducing, or even completely removing, vinyl eccentricity and thereby lowering wow and flutter.

Even though records are very precisely stamped out and trimmed, the position of the stamper plates for both sides and the records spindle hole are rarely perfect. This results in very small eccentricities that can introduce audible differences to the playback.

Excessive wow and flutter presents two problems:

1. The unstable rotation causes fluctuations in pitch across the frequency range.
2. Eccentricity will cause the cartridge and tonearm to be forced to sway from side to side as they follow the groove. This impairs the stylus ability to accurately track the groove and can result in a muddy sound and an unstable sonic image.

Correcting this eccentricity as much as possible can therefore unlock more of the potential performance of your equipment.

According to DS Audio:

“With an eccentricity width value of 0.34mm, even if there is no inherent wow and flutter (speed error) produced by the turntable in use, it reaches around 0.15% (WTD RMS) on the innermost grooves of the records playing surface. In reality and put simply, when using even the finest quality turntables, these factors combined can result in an overall wow and flutter value 20 times worse than that of the turntable in isolation.”

The battery powered ES-001 is a 2.76″ (70mm) heigh and 3.15″ (80mm) in diameter aluminum and tungsten accessory weighing in at 1.37lbs (620gm) that is placed over your spindle and left there just like any vinyl weight. (At 1.37lbs make sure that your turntables suspension can support it. Also there is no mention of the spindle diameter or height range that the ES-001 supports.)

In use the ES-001 first projects light onto the run-out groove to measure variation in speed stability by using two infrared LEDs and two linear image sensors. Then using its 2.4inch touch screen it guides you to adjust the record’s position so that it is perfectly centered minimizing any eccentricity. This adjustment procedure assumes that there is some “play” in the vinyls spindle hole. If the hole has no play the ES-001 kit contains a reamer that allows you to slightly enlarge the vinyls spindle hole – at your own risk.

Finally the ES-001 also includes a USB cable for any future software upgrades.

For more information visit the DS Audio website.

In the USA contact Musical Surroundings for more information.