LYRA DELOS CARTRIDGE TOO BRIGHT, THIN AND SHRILL SOUNDING

Have never owned a Lyra anything. But I have learned something from this thread. Jonathan Carr is a class act.

@jeffvegas

On the one hand you say

MOVING COILS ARE HIGHLY OVERRATED.. 

And then you say

I bent a cantilever on the Hana ML I had and it is either going to be repaired or replaced at the dealer. I'm thinking of just trading that Hana AND the Delos in on a KLEOS.

Why would you try another MC if they are so overrated ?

Given that you say

 I am extremely hard on Cartridges due to having a few beers and getting clumsy with the tonearm. 

My suggestion - stick to MM's with a replaceabe stylus - that way you can keep a couple of spare styli for the rough nights. Also dont forget Moving Iron cartridges like Nagaoka (MP500) and Soundsmith ( Soundsmith's stylus replacement cost is quite modest).

I was wondering if jcarr would chime in on this obserd rant.

A couple things, jcarr is an absolute class act (obvious by how he has treated @jeffvegas with respect after shytting all over his design)

I own the Ortofon 2M Black and if you think it stomps all over that Lyra then you obviously have something wrong going on (in your system or in your head) tough to tell which at this point.

No matter what the price tags are on your current gear it has nothing to do with system synergy.

If you are adjusting the tonearm and hear no difference and you say it's hard to adjust a VPI uni pivot for azimuth.... Well I'll save the insult here since you already stated that you have forgotten more about audio than the rest of us ever knew.

Listen to jcarr. He will bend over backwards to help you.
I know from personal experience.

Not that you deserve it but I'll give you the contact again in case you forgot already.

Apatrick@audioquest.com

Also, I am extremely hard on Cartridges due to having a few beers and getting clumsy with the tonearm.

Translation-I am extremely hard on fellow audiophiles due to having a few beers and getting clumsy with my manners. 
Fwiw, my beerbelly friend(emy), I have been in the hobby for 45 years. How you can claim to "have forgotten more than you have ever known" is inexplicable, though again, the above explains a lot. 
I agree that an expert at TT set-up can make a unipivot sound very good, but there are inherent limitations to the VPI unipivot due to microscopic movement of the arm in the X-axis, the horizontal plane. A very good gimbaled arm does a better job of allowing all vibration picked up by the cantilever/stylus to be converted as is ideal into electromagnetic signal. A phono cartridge is like a loudspeaker transducer in reverse. A phono cartridge in a VPI unipivot arm is like a loudspeaker transducer mounted to it's cabinet with a bunch of loose screws. You know all about loose screws :-)

HAHAHA, Very funny fellow goners. Now this is turning into a VPI bashing party. I say enjoy your cheap gimbaled tonearms with its horrible friction and lack of adjustments.  To do a gimbaled tonearm correctly costs a lot of money. You're not going to find ANY Gimbaled tonearm at an affordable price that beats a VPI Unipivot.