Lyra Dorian or Lyra Delos cartridge?

Dear Mordante:

While the assembly of the Dorian was initially planned to be outsourced, this plan was cancelled while the cartridge was still in the prototype stage. Every production Dorian has shipped with Mishima's hands-on TLC.

The Dorian was originally planned to be a lower-cost cartridge, it was planned to be made in higher volumes, and it was planned to be not made by Mishima. To increase component volume and get individual component costs down, the mechanical components of the Dorian shared the same design as the Argo, and were made on the same machines. Anodizing was changed to a less sensitive color than the Argo (nothing is as aggravating as having a perfectly machined body get rendered unusable because of duff anodizing), and we specified a stylus that was as close in dimension and shape to the Argo, but off-the-shelf rather than a custom design (custom designs will always be more expensive).

However, the Dorian project suffered a setback in the assembly phase. I've written previously about what happened here

http://learn.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1268751339&openflup&62&4

I kept all of the design aspects of the Dorian, but brought in Akiko Ishiyama as Mishima's apprentice-in-training. As she learned the craft of building MCs over the past 8 years, Akiko has gradually taken on more and more of the early assembly stages of the Dorian. Nonetheless, Mishima does all of the final assembly and voicing work which is critical to the performance and sound. This is true for each and every Dorian that has ever shipped.

The situation is the same with all of the Delos' - the basic assembly is done by Akiko, and the finishing, voicing and measuring is by Mishima. Actually, Akiko is now involved in some of the basic assembly work for the Kleos as well as the Delos, and she continues to do good work.

Since the Dorian was never outsourced, keeping it in our lineup would have indeed been an extra burden on Mishima (and Akiko).

Although the Dorian would still have been cheaper than the Delos if we had kept it in our lineup, rising material, energy, processing etc costs meant that it wouldn't have been much cheaper. I estimate that retail of the Dorian as it was would now need to be US$1300 or thereabouts, and that meant that it would clearly offered much less performance and sound quality for the money than when it was priced at under US$1000.

I didn't feel good about seeing the retail price rise without any accompanying increase in performance, so I pondered various ways to boost performance. OTOH it wouldn't have made sense to increase performance by throwing advanced materials or complex machining at the problem, as this would have bumped the resulting cartridge right out of its intended retail price target. Luckily I had the "New Angle" inspiration, and this made it possible to introduce a Dorian (and Argo) replacement with much-improved performance, for not much more than the Dorian would have ended up costing anyway.

As to how well the Delos performs in comparison to the Dorian, that is going to change depending on what kind of audio system you have and your setup skills. Also when it comes to subjective opinions, there is no wrong or right. Although I've heard (a very few) systems where there wasn't much to choose between the Dorian and Delos, by far and large, I find the Delos to perform at the Helikon class and above.

hth, jonathan carr

Jonathan,
thank you for your detailed and precise explanations. I am a current Delos owner and have been bitten by the Lyra sound. I have previously owned cartidges from rega (Exact) and Dynavector (DV20XH). The Delos is my first LOMC and am enjoying it eminsely. Congratulations on an excellent design. What would be the next logical upgrade in the Lyra line and what Might I expect as trade-in value on my 3 month old cartridge?

03-05-11: Mofimadness
Jonathan Carr is one of the good guys in the industry. He's a straight shooter and tells it like it is. I, for one, appreciate his honesty.

i have to agree with this sentiment. i can't say that i fully understand everything that jonathan carr writes but i think that i understand most of what he writes. to my knowledge, the stuff that he writes tends to add up. in an industry that seems to operate so much on smoke and mirrors, i really appreciate someone who is willing to give you the straight scoop on the tradeoffs that drive his design decisions.

as to the skepticism expressed by elizabeth, my advice is that you should try to understand as much about this stuff as you possibly can - then you can approach this stuff as a more informed consumer. that is a more reliable position than to merely bemoan the presumed questions about the integrity of some dealers.

for my own part, i came across my delos cartridge from sorasound. at the time sorasound had an inventory of zyx cartridges that he was trying to unload but the dealer expressed a high regard for jonathan carr's work. sorasound may still have the inventory of zyx cartridges, so if you're looking for a zyx cartridge at a discount, that would be a good dealer to contact...

Interesting thread, and I'd like to thank you Mr Carr for taking the time to contribute with such detailed and thoughtful replies.

Can I ask a question - can Lyra rebuild/retip their carts.

Dear Miner:

Regarding trade-in value of a new-ish Delos, I honestly don't know, as each distributor sets their own pricing for retail, trade-ins, upgrades, rebuilds etc. The dealer that you bought the Delos from is probably the best person to ask.

Regarding the next step up for you, the quick answer is the Kleos at US$2700. But 3 months with a cartridge that you say you are happy with, and then onto the next one - IMO this is too quick.

Also, compared to the Delos, the Kleos is a lower-output cartridge, which will be more demanding on your phono stage, and it puts more mechanical energy into the tonearm and damps the headshell less, which means a bigger challenge for the tonearm. I don't know what turntable, tonearm or phono stage you are using, but unless they are up to the task, it could be that the Kleos leaves you less satisfied. I recall some Helikon users who upgraded to the Titan, and for them and their audio systems it turned out to be a downgrade, while I've previously pointed out in this thread that some users prefer the Delos over the Kleos in their systems.

If I were you, I'd listen to the Delos more, probably borrow a lower-output cartridge to see how your phono preamp gets along with it, and maybe borrow a lower-compliance cartridge to see how your tonearm likes it. If any of the results suggest that there could be problems or marginal results from the Kleos in your system as it is now, I'd then look into alternative phono stages and/or tonearms which could do better. These wouldn't necessarily need to be new - something like a second-hand Graham 2.2 or Triplanar could be pretty nice.

I believe that an upgraded phono stage or tonearm could be a more effective path for you now than the Kleos, as these would give you a better foundation for performance improvements in the future, regardless of whichever phono cartridge you ultimately decided was the one for you.

It could be a result of my engineering background, but I get a lot of pleasure from figuring out how to squeeze out the absolute maximum performance that I can from my gear. Only when I'm satisfied that I've extracted pretty much everything there is to be had from a component will I think about its replacement.

I'd also suggest that you take your time. Unless you have lots of income to dispose on audio, unhurried, carefully considered decisions are likely to get you farther and give you more ultimate satisfaction (and for less outlay).

I'm not saying that you shouldn't consider a cartridge upgrade, but hopefully I've shown that there are other issues and options that you may want to think about first.

kind regards, jonathan carr