Has anyone tried the new Lyra Kleos?

Hi David: I have used all of our cartridges on lots of unipivots - Grahams, Spiral Grooves, Naims, Audiocrafts, Moerchs and more… Haven't encountered any particular problems so far that defied careful setup, although I can imagine that some users may find it twitchy to set up tonearms that don't have stabilized azimuth.

Rather than unipivot vs. gimbal or knife-edge or whatever, consistent VTF is tied to the relationship between tonearm bearing height vs. stylus position (both should be at the same height). If the bearing height is low in relation to the stylus, the VTF will be reduced as the cartridge goes up (on warped LPs), and if the bearing height is high in relation to the stylus, VTF will increase as the cartridge goes up.

Tonearm center of gravity vs. stylus position will also have some effect on VTF consistency.

I don't own a VPI myself, but have heard from customers and dealers that some of the VPI tonearms seem to work better with our cartridges than other VPI tonearm models.

As always, someone who is good at setup will be able to extract a higher percentage of the sonic potential of whatever components are used.

kind regards, jonathan carr

I have a Delos on a VPI Classic JWM 10.5i arm and I couldn't be happier. It was my first unipivot arm and I'm dumber than a sack of hammers, but I got it to work extremely well.

And the unipiviot isn't wobbly when it's in action, only when it's off the album. If it wobbles while in play, you've got problems.

I read the laundry list of complaints/problems guys have...IGD, sibilance, hum, skipping, harsh/muted/ highs, too much/not enough bass, what have you...and I just don't have any of that.

If the table/cart vanished tomorrow, I'd replace it with the same thing. Tomorrow.

My ONLY gripe, and having Mr. Carr in on the thread, is that the Delos is so tall that the VTA adjustment on my arm is pretty much all the way up to get things level that way, and that's bare metal platter. Which is ironic considering the only negative threads I'd seen on the Delos were based on "low rider" cantilevers.

And that might well be a VPI complaint, that they need to put a little more positive VTA adjustment into this arm assembly. I can't run a mat without the cartridge end of the arm being higher than the pivot end.

That said, I still think it's a great combo.

"I read the laundry list of complaints/problems guys have...IGD, sibilance, hum, skipping, harsh/muted/ highs, too much/not enough bass, what have you...and I just don't have any of that."

I meant that as a general list of complaints, not as a specific list of complaints towards this particular pairing.

P.S. I wish I could become a full member so I didn't have to wait a couple of hours before my posts appear. In this case I realized right off that I could have worded it better, I didn't want anybody to get the wrong idea about my previous post.

Jr_w,

Have you experienced the Delos with other tables or arms for comparison?
Also, I am curious, how have you got your anti-skating set up?

Thank you for your encouraging testimony,
- Dave

No, I have only used it on this table. I did use a less expensive MM cart (AT440MLa) on the table for a bit while waiting on the Delos. Phono stage is Pass XP-15.

Since this was my first unipivot arm, I did go through some trials and tribulations getting it set up, and I removed the arm a few times to do the physical parts swapping.

When I first started using it I didn't use the anti-skate, but I think removing the arm a few times flexed the leads enough that they no longer provided sufficient anti-skate on their own. I ended up applying the bare minimum anti-skate via the weight/lever/line mechanism. I might even be able to remove that now, I only had an issue with a single track on a Steely Dan album, but that album is one that I have settled on as a reproduction benchmark that I can detect subtle changes to the setup with. It's flawless now and sounds excellent even with the touch of AS, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to revisit "Can't Buy a Thrill" with no AS since everything should be settled in by now.

I need to emphasize that I am certainly no expert on any of this, so please don't take any of my postings as doctrine. Just an anecdote. The main point was that if an idiot such as myself can get this kind of performance from a Lyra Delos on this arm/table, I see nothing inherently incompatible between the two. I'd imagine the Kleos would behave similarly as far as mechanical setup is concerned.