Digital Scale Shootout - Ortofon DS-1 Vs. Generic

tnsilver

Stereo Puppy
I ordered a cheap scale off the bay after suspecting it's the base unit for the new Ortofon DS-3. It was so cheap ($5.6 with free shipping) that I could not resist. Another AK'er that ordered the same product claimed to have gotten a dud that won't turn on, so I was on alert. The packaged scales look like this:

XiDlT2K.jpg


After installing a fresh set of triple 'A' batteries in my newly arrived generic scale, it refused to turn on, or so I thought... It turns out the LCD display is so dim, it's barely visible, so I could not actually see the display until I turned off my desk lamp for better contrast.

So I toyed with it for a bit, and even managed to calibrate it with a 100 gram weight and started the shootout with the same 100g weight:

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Moving on to 20 grams:

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Then 10 grams:

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Finally 5 grams:

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So far not too bad, right? Wrong! Dead wrong. One thing I noticed is that the generic scale is very
sensitive to the exact spot of the weight on the pad, more on this in a bit... So now it's down to 3
grams and I'm using a Technics headshell spacer weight for that:

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...and just for reference, the DS-1:

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Now, watch this:

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...and for reference again, the DS-1:

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The DS-1 is rock steady consistent, even like this:

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Next, I'm gonna do some stylus VTF measurements...
 
So I'm gonna use my Thorens TD-135 and it's clunky BTD-12S tonearm with it's super heavy headshell fitted with a Denon DL-103 cart to take some VTF measurements. Starting with the DS-1 for reference, I'm tracking at 2.3 grams of VTF:

LDvCTys.jpg


Next, I was expecting to get something close to 2.3 grams with the generic scale, but it's just too fat and too sensitive to get a good reading:

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So I got rid of the lid, thinking it was in the way. It's really just snap on plastic hinges, so off it went, and...

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I thought, maybe if I eliminate the fat profile and measure closer to record level height, I might get some actual real results, and I tried without the mat:

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Then, with the mat again:

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...and then again:

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Anyway... I didn't have high hopes for it, not in comparison with the DS-1, but I expected to be able to take some consistent VTF reading.
I guess that's too much to ask for out of an under $6 scale. Another thing to notice, other than the very dim display, is that this thing only looks good
in presentation pictures. In practice, it's flimsy and feels like it's gonna fall apart. The silvery metal look of it due to a chromed plastic fairing all around
it. It's not just displaying inconsistency while weighing, it's also a bitch to get started. I had to hold the 'on' button for a couple of seconds, before some
unreadable 4 letter feed back (probably 'pass') appeared on the display but was too dim to read, and then, finally, it showed 0.0 and was ready. Then
I turned it off, and then on again, only this time it only took a single quick push on the 'on' button. Go figure...

My Summary: Total trash! It's only $5.6 but save it for something else.
 
My $10 digital scale (bought two years ago) looks EXACTLY like the Ortofon except the steel plate on the top.
 
The balance beam scale that used to come with the O'fon is perfectly adequate, as is the AT balance beam. The electronic scale is more precise.
 
I too have used an $11USD cheapie from amazon that has a very low platform, about record height, and it does a wonderful job. The Ortofon is great I'm sure, but a complete and utter rip-off IMO, although I'm happy that the OP is pleased with his.
 
I'd like to see the same comparison done with one of the little low profile ones sold specifically as stylus gauges on Amazon. :)
 
I've got two of them here. No Ortofon to compare them with, but all three I bought give identical and consistent readings to 0.01g.

They are remarkable for the money.

I'll post some pics.
 
I use the Shure balance beam style scale. Seems good enough to me. Don’t see the need for more precision and no need to worry about battery, displays, and where you put the diamond on the scale.
 
I too have used an $11USD cheapie from amazon that has a very low platform, about record height, and it does a wonderful job. The Ortofon is great I'm sure, but a complete and utter rip-off IMO, although I'm happy that the OP is pleased with his.

Kinda in this camp. The rip off is related to value in my opinion. Just not worth the extra cash given the alternatives. But to each his/her own. ;)

BTW - thanks for the review tnsilver. Always like these type of reviews.
 
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Well, if you spend the money a DS-1 costs to buy cheap $10 digital scales, sooner or later you'll hit one that works well. But if you're unlucky you also have a bunch of crappy scales that don't work properly and have supported a very questionable culture of wasting natural resources on throwaway crap, or spent a lot of time dealing with returns and the like.

I got lucky on a first try and got a $10 scale which has been working fine for several years and only needed one battery change during that time despite seeing quite regular use since I switch carts around a lot, so no complaints but you also won't hear me bashing companies for selling expensive products that actually work. Just that something looks similar or even identical in pictures doesn't mean it's the same thing. It could be, but it could also be just a very cheaply built knock off, or have the same external parts but everything inside of sub-standard quality, or be a factory reject which didn't make the cut for the actual brand name item or in some other way part of a scammy business.

Let's be real here, the amount of money some of the chinese stuff costs, there's been some pretty heavy corner cutting somewhere, if it doesn't show in the quality of the finished product, it's bound to show somewhere else which probably will mean workers didn't get paid properly or environment was crapped on, or both and more. Of course those issues aren't changed by some western company taking a 500% markup from stamping their name on the product, but no one seems to know if that's actually the case with the Ortofon scales for example. If someone really cared, they could actually write Ortofon and ask where those scales are made and what makes them different from the $5 dollar scales and what Ortofon has done to ensure the workers who make their scales get paid proper money etc. etc. instead of just yelling RIPOFFFFFFF on internet forums.

Btw. even a $5 scale is nothing near a $5 scale by the time someone is selling it in Europe having imported a bunch of them through proper channels, possibly spent some money in ensuring the items are up to local safety/electrical standards (ok perhaps not in the case of a scale operating on a 1.5V battery...), maybe added quality control, then comes dealer markups etc...
 
If someone really cared, they could actually write Ortofon and ask where those scales are made and what makes them different from the $5 dollar scales
Good idea! You know what? I care and I'm all game. I just sent this to the Danish support email:

Hello Ortofon

I am curious about your DS-3 digital scale.
Recently I had encountered some very similar cheap digital scales online (see example) and apart from the steel plate and some minor differences, they appear to be the same as the DS-3. At the very least it seems the Ortofon DS-3 shares the same enclosure and design as other generic digital scales.

In light of the above, can you please share where is the DS-3 digital scale made?
What is Ortofon's explanation for the apparent similarity to various generic digital scales that are sold for a considerably lower price than asked for the DS-3?

Kind Regards

James Tiberius Kirk

Now I'm even more curious if corporate culture would actually give a $%#$ and have the curtsy to honor me with a BS free meaningful reply.
I promise to update.
 
Nice work but I’ll stick with the cheap version I’ve had for 4 plus years and has worked flawlessly for me with one battery change and bi-weekly use.
 
I personally don't think Ortofon, or any other company, is "ripping" people off. I'm sure they provide a consistently quality product. They have to make a profit after paying the vendors that make the item. If they designed it, they have to recover R&D costs.

The "knock off's" from China (for scales or any other product), are probably exactly that. They might actually be made by the same company that got the contract to produce the name brand item. In some cases, they may violated patent laws, but probably out of reach legally since they are made in China. I have bought Chinese knockoffs of things that clearly are the exact same item, just a different label than name brand. They may be factory seconds, items taken out the "back door," or sold unlabeled by the same company that got the original contract to produce for the name brand item, and hence identical. Who knows?

I bought 2 cheap scales, one at Harbor Freight (for RC part weighing, but used it for a while for tonearm VTF) and the one I posted about above. Both work well, and provide similar results using known "tare" weights across a range. (New US coins have specific mass, which are published). The Harbor Freight one was thicker, so I have to remove the platter to get the tonearm level in use. However, both scales provide the same results, and are in rough agreement with the tonearm "dial."

The reality is, by buying Chinese items, I may have "cheated" a legitimate company. Because I ordered the item cheap from the Chinese source - if there is a patent violation, or some other nefarious source, I probably didn't treat the company who designed the product fairly.

I would never "diss" a company for charging more for guaranteed quality/results and recoup of R&D. I buy from China because I can't afford the item otherwise.
 
How do you know it worked flawlessly for you?

Because I have approx 10 various devices to measure VTF. Mechanical balance beam to digital. I have calibrated it more than a few times with varying weights and it remains accurate. My experience has been good. Yours perhaps not.
 
You buy from China because it is virtually impossible to live a normal consumer life these days without buying much of what's in your house, and in your life, from China. It would be exceedingly expensive, and exceedingly difficult, to avoid goods manufactured in China. Knowing that, I'll happily buy my $11 digital scale from Amazon, another enterprise that is changing the way our economy functions.

Times change. When I was a kid, the junk was manufactured in Japan while China was largely an agrarian, backward country with too many mouths to feed. Even Japanese toys were looked down upon, usually cheap throw-away junk. You should have heard the howls from older Americans when tiny little Hondas and Toyotas and Datsuns started showing up in the US. Japanese manufacturing is now fetishized in the US, while the true production powerhouse is China, and by a mile.


I personally don't think Ortofon, or any other company, is "ripping" people off. I'm sure they provide a consistently quality product. They have to make a profit after paying the vendors that make the item. If they designed it, they have to recover R&D costs.

The "knock off's" from China (for scales or any other product), are probably exactly that. They might actually be made by the same company that got the contract to produce the name brand item. In some cases, they may violated patent laws, but probably out of reach legally since they are made in China. I have bought Chinese knockoffs of things that clearly are the exact same item, just a different label than name brand. They may be factory seconds, items taken out the "back door," or sold unlabeled by the same company that got the original contract to produce for the name brand item, and hence identical. Who knows?

I bought 2 cheap scales, one at Harbor Freight (for RC part weighing, but used it for a while for tonearm VTF) and the one I posted about above. Both work well, and provide similar results using known "tare" weights across a range. (New US coins have specific mass, which are published). The Harbor Freight one was thicker, so I have to remove the platter to get the tonearm level in use. However, both scales provide the same results, and are in rough agreement with the tonearm "dial."

The reality is, by buying Chinese items, I may have "cheated" a legitimate company. Because I ordered the item cheap from the Chinese source - if there is a patent violation, or some other nefarious source, I probably didn't treat the company who designed the product fairly.

I would never "diss" a company for charging more for guaranteed quality/results and recoup of R&D. I buy from China because I can't afford the item otherwise.
 
You should have heard the howls from older Americans when tiny little Hondas and Toyotas and Datsuns started showing up in the US.
I bought a Honda Accord in 1979 and live in the Midwest. Had to drive 150 miles to buy it as there were no dealers close by.

Believe me, I heard the howls of laughter...until they rode in it, and were impressed. Then they said "it is too light to go through snow well," until they found out what front wheel drive does in snow. Then they switched to "but where do you get it repaired." When I told them it never needs repairing they scoffed....
 
It was only 10 years after you bought your Honda that I bought my first one, a CR-X, which I loved dearly for a long, long time. You bought your Honda a little after the beginning of the paradigm shift for American car buyers, and mostly unbeknownst to those of us who were too young to notice at the time, also the beginning of the global race for cheap labor that created the Chinese manufacturing powerhouse.

I'm no China-file, but I shake my head and laugh when I see people make snarky remarks about Chinese goods. Chinese manufacturing is world-class, and the goods we buy are made to a certain level of quality because that's what the market calls for, and that market is ours.

I bought a Honda Accord in 1979 and live in the Midwest. Had to drive 150 miles to buy it as there were no dealers close by.

Believe me, I heard the howls of laughter...until they rode in it, and were impressed. Then they said "it is too light to go through snow well," until they found out what front wheel drive does in snow. Then they switched to "but where do you get it repaired." When I told them it never needs repairing they scoffed....
 
Nearly every smartphone (I say nearly only because I don't want to look it up. I'm 99% sure it's "all") is made in China. If we want to ditch Chinese goods we better figure out how to stay in contact with our friends and family without phones.

I can almost guarantee that the only engineering Ortofon did on their stylus gauge is designing the little metal plate that extends over the edge of the scale for the stylus to sit on. 100% of the rest of it is an off the shelf scale from some manufacturer, probably in China. Ortofon is not in the business of designing and building scales. They make turntable cartridges. They would have to spend in inordinate amount of money to design and tool up to make that scale themselves.

The biggest difference is that Ortofon probably specifies "we want xyz accuracy specs" and the manufacturer guarantees to some level that they will meet those specs. So you may even find exactly the same scale sans the fancy Ortofon top plate elsewhere. It wouldn't be unlikely for them to simply be "binned" examples of some basic design out of China. Oftentimes the consistency and quality of a product out of a Chinese factory is directly proportional to what is requested and paid for by the purchaser.
 
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