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Lyra Kleos arrives after eight months. . Worth the wait? First impressions

About nine months ago I posted some threads on Audiogon to get advice concerning upgrading the Ortofon Black 2M, moving magnet cartridge on my VPI Classic 2 turntable. You all ended up convincied me to not only to upgrade my cartridge, but to upgrade a VPI JMW unipivot tonearm to a VPI gimballed Fatboy tonearm. And after carefully considering all your recommendations, plus doing a lot of research, a Lyra Kleos moving coil cartridge was chosen and ordered.

The VPI Fatboy, ordered about March 1, arrived right away. However the new Lyra cartrdge took a full eight months to arrive from that same date. Apparently there is only one person in Japan with a single assistant making every Lyra cartridge. Picture this poor soul working day and night, chained to the floor in a small basement room with only his assistant Igor to help.

The Lyra Kleos cartridge is now happily and professionally installed on the Fatboy. It has maybe ten or so hours on it at this point. Most noticeable so so far is a better defined bass response. Elements of the sound stage also seem to be more clealy defined. Paticularly on better recorded albums, you can hear everything more clearly, as well as hear things that were simply lost in the mix before. For instance on a Sade record I distinctly heard a background singer singling softly along with her which had never been apparent before. Every sound seems better realized in more detail and depth especially on better recorded albums. On more poorly recorded content, not so much.

All in all I’m happy with the results so far. It took about three hours of break in before the cartridge began to open up. My first clue on how well this cart could perform was listening to a Jaco Pastorius bass run on a nicely recorded Joni Mitchell album. That was exciting. Some older Mies Davis and Charles Mingus sounded great too. On some other material like Mike Bloomfields Live at the Fillmore West the sound wan’t much improved over the Ortofon 2M cart. My ECM records all sounded more well defined so far.

What has been your experience with a Lyra cartridge if you have one? Have you been pleased with yours. At about how many hours did yours peak out. I’ve read their performance peaks at anywhere from 20 to 100 hourswhich is quite a range. What’s your experience? If you knew yours would take eight months to arrive would you have gone another route?

Mike

 

skyscraper
fsonicsmith's avatar
fsonicsmith
938 posts
 

Fsonicsmith I wish I’d have the same capabilitites on my Luxman integrated amp’s phono stage to make the adjustments you have tried. For better or worse those settings are fixed for either a mm or mc cartridge on my integrated amp, but that’s it.. There are no adjustments possible. Truthfully I hardly know what most of these or other specs mean anyway. I think I correctly figured out prior to purchase the 100 ohm impedance spec preset for a mc cartridge significantly limited my choice of cartridges. Glad you’re in a better situation.

Mike

Mike, I am the proud owner of a Luxman P-750u headphone amp. I can tell you from first-hand experience that Luxman's product support is way beyond. So perhaps you could reach out to Jeff Sigmund at Luxman USA and ask for a deal on a Luxman phono stage. You have invested good coin in your Lyra. Perhaps an easy modification of your integrated amp would do the job if you were to hypothetically stick to the Lyra Kleos for the indefinite future. Luxman's resident wiz in the USA is Steven at 

The Service Department
30 Unquowa Hill Street
Bridgeport, CT 06604
(203) 331-0671

 

So I know my post is potentially confusing but you could add a dedicated new phono stage with far greater adjustment and great build and sound for the sake of being future-proof or you could send your integrated into Steven with the input of Jeff Sigmund to optimize your integrated for your Lyra Kleos.

dover
2,188 posts
 

@fsonicsmith 

Actually Luzmans' top phono stage has very little ability to change the cartridge loading. If he was to invest in a phono stage he would be better off with a different brand - there are many posts on this forum on the lack of adjustability with the Luxman phono.

If it was me, I'd look at the possibility of increasing the input impedance on his integrated amp moving coil to 470k which should work fine with the Kleos.

fsonicsmith's avatar
fsonicsmith
938 posts
 

Actually Luzmans' top phono stage has very little ability to change the cartridge loading. If he was to invest in a phono stage he would be better off with a different brand - there are many posts on this forum on the lack of adjustability with the Luxman phono.

If it was me, I'd look at the possibility of increasing the input impedance on his integrated amp moving coil to 470k which should work fine with the Kleos.

The EQ-500 has continuously variable loading from the front panel of 30k to 100k Ohms which encompasses what the vast majority of MC cartridges need. I am sorry to tell you this but the vast majority of MC cartridges are happiest at 50-300k Ohms and not 47K. 47K serves MM and step-up transformers. To your other point I do agree that there is no need to be wedded to Luxman. But Luxman does make very well engineered and great sounding gear with amazing product support. 

karl_desch's avatar
karl_desch
422 posts
 

A nice 1:10 ratio SUT going into the 47k input would also be a potential improvement.  But I’d wait for several months to let the cart open up and get to know its capabilities.  

skyscraper OP
826 posts
 

Fsonicsmith, I looked up the Luxman EQ-500. It looked interesting until discovering it cost as much as the Fatboy and Lyra Kleos combined. Mind you, Audiogon folks already convinced me to double my budget to obtain a new tonearm for the Lyra, so please temper your suggestions. I’m not poor, but do have to live within my means. Of course with Christmas coming up I’d be happy to forward my address if any of you’d like to send one. Gift wrapping would be optional.

I’m curious about what they’d do to modify my integrated amp in Luxman’s service department to optimize it’s performance for the Lyra Kleos. Do you or anyone know? I did speak to someone named Jeff there right after purchasing the Luxman integrated amp. He was quite helpful as you indicate they were to you. Their products do seem to be very well engineered too, as you say, which factored heavily into purchasing one of their amps in the first place.

Dover and Karl, it would be nice to acquire a new phono stage, but honestly not in the cards right now. Maybe if the economy ever recovers it might be time to reconsider.

Mike

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