Lyra or ZYX ?

It all depends on withc tonearm you are using. With Lyra you need a arm withs can take "heaviere" cart`s.

But with that said, i will recomend Lyra Delos over any ZYX cart ;-)

The few times I've heard an SME (V) with ZYX (UNIverse) were not impressive. That arm seemed to smother most of what that cartridge can do.

How much that would apply to a 312 S2/Yatra combination is very debatable of course. Wildly different price and performance points.

With respect, Pierre1976's blanket recommendation would only be useful if he's actually heard every ZYX cartridge. I've probably heard more ZYX models than anyone save nakatsuka-san himself, but I'd never make a blanket statement like that. For one thing, several models are VERY different from the "typical" ZYX house souond. Love the enthusiasm though. ;)

Doug, mine is the older generation SME 3012 Series2, not the new gen SME 312. You mention that with a heavy tonearm the ZYX yatra can rock. Do you think my tonearm fulfils that criteria ? It will be interesting to hear from you what you think about Lyra, just in case you have heard one.

Sometimes I wonder how difficult is it for a dealer to allow a home demo of a cartridge if not the top end at least the mid level ones. He can even charge a sum for doing it but how easy the life of the buyer becomes !!

According to various posts on the internet, the 3012 S2 had an eff. mass of 14g. From that perspective it's just massive enough to be viable, though ~18g would be better. Experience from someone who'd actually heard the combination would be better of course.

Mehran might surprise you about demoing. He's a very customer-friendly guy. Couldn't hurt to ask, he might have a used one lying about. Who knows?

Doug, what is your opinion about Lyra vs ZYX ? Since you are so exhaustively into analog I would guess you have heard some Lyras also ?