Kleos Sibilance

He said morons plural, not necessarily directing it at you Robert but he just should not have said that. If that arm will only work best with MM cartridges, why not say something like MM cartridges recommended for the JMW 9, signature etc. It obviously has difficulty tracking with demanding cartridges. I think people should be aware of this so they do not make the same mistake as me. If you just plan on popping on a mm cartridge and listen occasionally, it probably is good enough for others. I just get ticked off when I take my sibilance and distortion ridden records to a friends house, and he plays them on a 30 year old turntable and they sound amazing, no distortion or sibilance. Why is that? He is using a Lyra cartridge as well. It tracks like a train on his table. If you were to see this table, it is not as nice to look at as a VPI, but it sounds great. I have never seen his table come up on the gon for sale. Its an old Mission 774 or something like that.

Before I upgraded from my Scout turntable with the original JMW-9 arm I used a Lyra Argo cartridge and also a Lyra Skala cartridge with the JMW-9 arm and I got excellent sound with no sibilance or other problems.
The Argo weighs only 6.4 grams but it tracked well and sounded great with no added weight on the headshell.

Again, trying to be fair, trying to be unbiased, after reading much, of not all of this thread, I still personally haven't came to any solid conclusions.

My thoughts are, is, or was it truly the JMW Arm to blame, or could it possibly be something else?

I have no financial interest, or gain, to come here to say the JMW Arm is crap, or is it the Lyra Kleos at fault?

Or that maybe the real truth lies somewhere in the middle, that neither are/were at fault, and the playback issues were caused by something else?

As I had hoped Mr J Carr would've participated, as i know he's highly knowledgeable, but I can think back, and remember some words he once said, and I'd like to roughly quote some of his own comments from the far past.

I remember Mr Carr once commenting about Cartridge design, in regards to the many design principals persued, and implemented.

That he once commented about the Benz Cartridges as an example, of being a versatile Cartridge, but with that versatility came compromises in the design.

Compromises, that may have allowed the design to be usable in a variety of conditions (meaning various Tonearms I took this), but perhaps as well a compromise in the optimum performace that could've been achieved.

I don't at all question what he had said, and will not question the truths to those statements, as the man no doubt has forgotten more than I'll ever know about an MC Cartridge.

But with those statements, I perhaps can read between the lines, and understand that he may have also said in a round about way, that with his designs, and Cartridges, that they have been optimized per the "Lyra way", that his Cartridges, to be fully realized may take a little more attention-detail to set up, that his designs won't "candy coat" a presentation-recording, that they will lay bare the "truth", and sometimes in those instances, playback can be heavenly stellar, or laid bare with all it's flaws, and shorcomings. And that also, his designs may be a little bit more particular in the Tonearm they will be paired with.

Others, that as well may share similar revealing traits as these Lyras, could be the top tier ZYX, and I can recall people like Doug D making mention, that to extract the best playback from a Cartridge like the ZYX UNIverse, that any old Tonearm wasn't going to cut it.

Is that then a flaw of the Arm itself, or of the Cartridge? Or actually of neither? Just a incompatible mismatch? Mark

That could be it, a mismatch, but a VPI dealer knowing what table I had sold me a cartridge that has no business being on that arm. I am just speaking about my situation. I have read that others have had problems with their cartridges even after being set up by VPI. I would think they would know how to align cartridges. I believe one of those instances is mentioned in this thread. Maybe it was a defective cartridges, or should I say cartridges. Who knows.

Update. I recently realigned my cartridge. I do not believe it. My cartridge is tracking beautifully now. It is one of those, what happened? I have heard better, but it is certainly listenable right now. I think the biggest thing that I did was adjusting the VTA and azimuth. More the VTA though. It seems as though the Benz I have is very sensitive to VTA and only being off slightly is all the difference. I am very excited! Even though it is somewhat difficult to set up, it took me about a year, it is possible. I cannot believe it. Sounds great through the whole side, very little inner groove distortion and tracking error, big improvement. There is still some sibilance on some tracks, So Long So Wrong last track side two, but I believe this to be a recording glitch and just very demanding to track. Maybe a better cartridge or a MM cartridge could do a better job but I am not touching any of the settings. It seem together, the JMW 9 and Benz H2 are not very forgiving in setup.