Moving coil with a bit less leading edge

Is there something about AlNico magnets that all cartridges that use them normally tends to be "musical" ?

You will certainly get a more rounded, less edgy sound with a non-stone Koetsu (i.e., not the jades, or coralstone, etc). But, that comes with some woolly quality and overly prominent (and slow) upper bass.

I like Allaert cartridges for a smoother and refined sound while not giving up too much in dynamics.

Syntax raised a good point about cartridge arm compatibility. The Lyra cartridges have metal bodies designed to convey vibrational energy from the cartridge body into the arm for the arm to dampen/dissipate. The arm must be well designed for that task to get the most out of those cartridges. In some threads, Jonathan Carr, the designer of Lyra cartridges mentions some arms he considered well up to the task (sorry I cannot remember which arms are mentioned).

Pani,
I hope you will get to try your Lyra Delos on a better tonearm than stock Technics SL-1200 direct drive table. Don't even think about Shilabe with that arm.

Opus88,

Your comments about wanting a little less edge to the initial transient attack and more natural decay to the notes is really better addressed by the kind of phonostage (as well as the rest of the amplification train). That describes the tube sound vs. solid state more than one cartridge vs. another cartridge.

>>> ...the sounds I most frequently hear at live orchestral concerts rarely display the kind of clean, tight contours quite a few audiophiles prefer...

If your experience of live orchestral music is that leading edges are rounded or that the sound is other than *very* crisp and clear, you need to sit in acoustically better halls (or at least acoustically better seats).

Come sit next to me in the Belding Theater in Harford CT, where the HSO plays (and brilliantly too, under our new Music Director, Carolyn Kuan). We have season tix for two of the four best seats in the house. The sonics are crisp, clear, enormously dynamic and highly revealing... more so than ANY stereo system.

I suspect this excessive crispness you're objecting to is an artifact added by the system. Rather than trying to paper over it with a schmoozy cartridge, stick with a revealing cartridge and track down the source(s) of the problem.

My purist $.02, FWIW, etc. :)