Lyra Delos A truth teller or what?

I recommend using your digital rig for this purpose. Digital has given us several gifts - rock solid "speed stability" along with the fact it's repeatable - no tracking force, VTA/SRA, and azimuth to doubt yourself over.

While I get your point, a digital source will not allow me judge the tonality of my TT, tonearm, phonostage and tonearm cable combination. Whether I am judging a turntable, cartridge, tonearm, phonostage or tonearm cable, a 103r gives me a great baseline of where things are. I will not use a Delos to do that simply because it is voiced. I have heard a Linn Kandid and that sounded very good.

By the way, I had a decent Naim CDP for sometime. While it did give some idea about the rest of the system’s voicing, the difference in dynamics, resolution and transparency that a quality analog rig (with a good phonostage) brings in even with a lowly 103r is so tremendous that I stopped making any comparison. I still agree that for measuring speed stability and transient response a good digital rig can come in handy, except that you may not know which element of the analog rig is at fault.

Indeed, we listen to vinyl for a reason, but I didn't have to tell you that ;-)

Digital can be useful for raw frequency response comparisons, but of course, the harmonic structure of most digital and vinyl is worlds apart. 

With a bit of familiarization, you can make some mental translations which can sometimes be helpful in diagnosis.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier Design

That’s true Thom

 It goes to show you how subjective this hobby is. I can't believe somebody would prefer the black to the Delos. I had them both in my system at same time and in my mind there was no comparison. I do agree with the poster that says the helicon is more accurate than the Delos.   Interestingly enough I found the Deloz to have a bit of a upper bass warmth that the helicon didn't so I went with the helicon.  I tried a high-level Benz  and found it to be much to thicken syrupy for my tastes.