New Lyra Delos Cartridge

Actually, I am wondering if the settings I mentioned above make sense. It seems that the instruction suggest that 91 ohms is the minimum setting with the Delos. That does not work for me. Too aggressive on the transients, a glare on the natural timbre of instruments. So why am I finding that I need to use these low settings?

I will note that on a solid state phono preamp (a prototype which allows for 67dB of gain) -same arm, wiring and table, the Delos seems pretty insensitive to load. With that preamp (no transformers) anything from 100 to 47k works pretty well.

The setup I am using is a Denon AU-340 SUT (40 ohms setting which is 1x10) into a Audio Innovations P2 phono preamp with a 47k input load. The phono cable is a straight shot of Discovery tone arm wire from the cartridge to the SUT - no other junctions - about three feet.

One thing that I should also mention is that the greater the load, the lower the output from the cartridge. So if you load the cartridge as much I seem to have to do, the input to the preamp drops significantly. This means that with more loading you can actually use a 1x20 ratio without having to worry about overloading the phono preamp.

I use the 1x10 though. But with the P2 phono preamp I can use a 12AX7 instead of a 12AU7 in the second gain stage to make up for the signal loss due to loading.

Any ideas as to why this amount of loading is necessary for me to get accurate timbre and non-aggressive transients?

Maybe something else in your system. However, I do load my Delos at the lowest load my phono preamps are capable of. I use a PS audio GCPH and Simaudio LP5.3.

The Audioquest VP suggested to me to try the 500 - 1000 ohm range; the Lyras do not like low resistance. He has his set at 1000 ohms.

The Audioquest VP Prod Devel suggested to me to try the 500 - 1000 ohm range; the Lyras do not like low resistance. He has his set at 1000 ohms.

"Since the Delos is a moving coil cartridge it is relatively immune from cable capacitance variations.

The Lyra cartridges generally don't like to be loaded down too far….the sound loses dynamic contrast when you go below around 200 ohms. I run my Lyra's at 1,000. Some prefer 47Kohm. You might play with 500 and 1,000 to see which you prefer.

Hope this helps."

I am very confused then. With the solid state phono pre that sounds right to me. But with my 1x10 sut into my 47000 tube phono pre it sounds bad. In the SUT situation l need 5-15 ohms to make it sound natural. And it does not seem to effect dynamics or high end detail. I was listening to a Chandos recording of Respighi's Church Windows last night and it was powerful enough to make me sit up straight in spots. Triangles, tubular bells, and celestre were very well represented. Timpani was wonderfully pitched and the organ was quite powerful.

Maybe I am mis-understanding what the actual impedance is somehow. I am just soldering resistors in parallel to the 47000 resistor at the phono pre input though.

Syntax did warn that this cartridge would show up all kinds of things about the down stream system. I have found that to be true. I have changed the tubes around in the phono pre. It didn't sound very good with Telefunken 12ax7s or other old stock tubes (I have a lot of them to try). The Sovtek 12ax7lps sounded very good (and I have only found one other application for this tubes in the past). I also re-cabled between the sut and phono pre and between the phono pre and the amp. I haven't messed with cables in years.

The end result sounds pretty good, but I might not be done yet...