A Chinese cartridge manufacturer surfaces
What? Suddenly a new Japanese cartridge manufacturer? That’s what I was thinking when Mockingbird Distribution’s Phillip Holmes dropped three cartridges on me from DYLP Audio. Never heard of them—but then I’d not heard of MuTech either when Holmes sent me one of that company’s $4500 RM-Kanda (now Hyabusa) moving coil cartridges, which I reviewed in the March 2019 issue’s Analog Corner.1 If that cartridge is not on your moving coil radar, you ought to put it there.
Holmes sent three made-in-China DYLP Audio cartridges: the MC Ruby-1, the MC100 Mk II, and the Mono. All are part of the Windbell series, and all are presented well in nicely finished wood boxes with QR codes on the glossy outer packaging that you can scan to access the company’s website, lpaudio.cn. Go there, and you’ll see an extensive cartridge line, although the English version of the website is confusing.
The company head, Lao Peng, founded Lao Peng Vinyl in Shanghai in 2001. In 2009, he began to design and manufacture moving magnet cartridges and to perform cartridge repairs. Holmes says that Mr. Peng—Lao appears to be a prefix, not a surname—who speaks no English, doesn’t like being the company’s front-facing person and was hesitant to sell his products in the West.
In 2010, the company moved to Nancheng, Dongguan, Guangdong, where Peng established Lao Peng Vinyl Studio. The company underwent various name changes and, as Dongguan Vinyl Audio Technology Co., Ltd., has been producing MC cartridges since 2011. In 2018, the company expanded and converted to what it calls “standardized factory production.” Photos in a promotional PDF show a well-organized, well-lit factory with at least six workstations, each equipped with a large stereo microscope. (See photo.) This is anything but a backroom operation. (Holmes said that they’re now in the process of moving to a larger facility.)
Cartridges are the company’s main product, but it also has
