New Lyra Delos Cartridge

Jfrech, thanks for your comments and thanks for your continued support.

Tokyo is now under 10 degrees centigrade maximum daytime temperature, and gets down to around freezing (or below) at night. I am using a tallish gooseneck incandescent lamp in front of the turntable. Faster and cheaper than bumping up the temperature setting on the heater (smile).

In my experience, an audio designer needs to be able to identify and eliminate (or at least mitigate) significant sources of errors in order to make real forward progress. However, once a major error source has been removed, it becomes easier to hear the other errors that still remain. So it is with the Delos and things like tracking forces vs. ambient temperatures, and I think that the same is true for loading.

If I get the time, I would like to put up a page on the Lyra website that discusses loading and illustrates how things like frequency response change as a function of loading (some of the numbers and trends may be easier to understand if they are accompanied by response graphs). Although the loading values will change depending on the design of the cartridge and how much capacitance is in the tonearm cable (and how much of an RF or high-frequency spike your phono stage can tolerate), the thinking should be valid for the majority of magnetic cartridges.

I have been experimenting with an alternative means of loading, and if I have some spare time to generate and collate sufficient data, I will put up a page for that, too.

In your particular case, Jfrech, I will note that both the Skala and Delos are quite dynamic cartridges, and if you load them down excessively you will compromise this energy somewhat, so I would suggest not loading them down any more than you find necessary (unless you prefer listening to concerts from Row M rather than Row C or the conductor's podium).

>When can you commment on other changes in your line up?

Not yet, but there is a chance that we may be able to show a prototype of the next step up from the Delos at the upcoming CES in January.

FWIW, I'd say that the Delos already surpasses the Helikon in terms of performance.

cheers

Old post I know but I'd appreciate hearing from anyone here who has now used a Delos. Anyone run one of these in a VPI JMW9 (mounted to a Scout?). Great post--thanks Jcarr for your thorough commentary.

Hi Jonathan,

do you have any recommendations for step-ups for the Delos? The Delos internal impedance is somewhat higher than other Lyra cartridges and you seem to recommend 5-15 Ohm where 5 Ohm is even below the internal impedance of the Delos. Would you recommend a 1:10 or 1:20 step with resistor loading (primary or secondary)?

Thanks for the help!

Rene

Hi Rene: Normally I wouldn't recommend a step-up transformer with the Delos unless your phono either has low gain or good overload margin.

The 0.6mV output from the Delos is high enough that it caused clipping when we matched it up with a Nagra BPS, which (according to Stereophile) has 51dB gain in fixed-coil mode and 62dB with the built-in stepup transformer in the circuit. Jumpering out the transformer cleared up the situation. I presume that the 9V power supply of the BPS is to blame, and that using a different phono stage with a higher power supply voltage would avoid the problem.

If you use a transformer, I suggest 1:10 ratio, loading at the secondary, and very short, very low-capacitance cable connecting the transformer to the phono stage.

Boosting the output from a Delos with a 1:10 ratio will present your phono stage with a 6mV input, which should be quite comfortable for all MM and MI-level phono stages.

If your phono stage has 60dB gain or more, you won't need a transformer (unless you have very low preamp/power amp gain, or very inefficient speakers). If your phono stage gain is in the 40-some dB range, you will probably need a headamp or stepup transformer. Again, your results will be affected by preamp/power amp gain and speaker efficiency, but likely not enough to let you get by without the extra gain stage.

The situation is more unclear with phono stages in the 50-some dB range. Here I don't have any firm recommendations, other than suggesting that you compare with and without a transformer or headamp. Perhaps you could first find a vintage unit of low price and the right properties, then change to a higher-quality unit once you've verified that things work.

FWIW, we also make the Erodion (http://www.lyraconnoisseur.com/Products/Products_Analog/Erodion/erodion.html), which is a stepup device, but this has a 1:20 ratio, so I wouldn't recommend it for the Delos unless your phono stage gain is in the low 40-some dB range.

hth, jonathan

Jonathan, thank you very much for the detailed response - very helpful.

One question about loading on the secondary - to get a 1:10 step up down to 10 Ohm loading one would have to use a 0.5 - 1 KOhm loading on the secondary. Problem is that most 1:10 step-ups aren't really optimized for such a low secondary load. 5-15 Ohm loading seems still pretty low, with an internal impedance of 8 Ohm for the Delos I would have guessed 15-100 Ohm loading with a step-up (without any direct experience).

Thanks again,

Rene