New Delos cart

I have a Delos. I do not hear a rising high end at all. It sounds completely neutral in that regard. It is loaded at 183 ohms into a lundahl 1941. And why would you say that it sounds fine on good Analogue Production records but wrong elsewhere? I find it hard to believe that the vast majority of recordings have a rising top end, or conversely, that Analogue Production records are all rolled off in the highs.

Maybe your hearing in the higher frequencies is better than mine?

FWIW, I also do not find the Delos to be lean and/or analytical in my system. I keep reading that this is the Lyra house sound. But it does not apply to the Delos. Each recording sounds distinctive - as they should. The Delos reveals the positive and negative attributes of recordings so clearly that I have no doubt that I am hearing a good chunk of what was captured. Great performances with solid engineering are magnificent to listen to - and there are thankfully many such records to choose from.

Delos is not lean, I agree. It is very revealing of the recordings I also agree. It is very musical, correct. If I had the luxury of multiple arms, most probably one of them would have had a Lyra on it.

Even though I have heard many high end cartridges in various systems, my reference for tonality is a Denon 103/103R. Listen to a Delos besides a 103, maybe you can relate to my concerns regarding its treble. 103 lacks in every other area compared to the Delos but tonally-timbrally it tells you exactly what the instruments and voices in a recording sounds like. That is why it conveys emotions so well in spite of so many limitations (especially dynamic limitations).

I gave the example of analogue productions because when the recording/mastering/pressing is very good everything sounds good and it many a times becomes difficult to tell the flaws. It is just very enjoyble due to the excellent resolution present in the LP. Listen to a average LP which you listen mostly because of its music and not because of the quality of the recording, possibly you may hear the issues I am trying to project.

As far as musical attributes are concerned with respected to cartridges, I place timbral accuracy the highest. Listening to Mozart's woodwind divertimenti I don't want to have to guess what instruments are playing. The clarinet, oboe, flute and cor anglais can sound rather indistinct with respect to one another. I don't have that problem with the Delos. Same goes for hearing the voices in string quartet music. I know of no more difficult tests for judging timbre reproduction, and the Delos passes easily.

Last night I was listening to Debussey played on the restored Siena pianoforte. The nuances of timbre on that instrument are fascinating to listen in to.

So I can't see how the Delos is defecient in the area of timbre. It strikes me as natural and accurate, at least in combination with the rest of my system. Now it is also true that I had to do some tube rolling in the phono pre to get that to happen so it could be that I compensated for the Delos. But judging from the sound through my ss phono pre, I don't think so.

Pani,

Just curious. What setup ( phono/arm/table/ampspeakers) did you use or listen to the Delos with?

Jaspert, I heard the Delos on a Rega P9 with RB1000 tonearm, 47 Labs phonostage, Naim 52 preamp with Naim 135 power amp driving a pair of ATC SCM20. I also had the Delos at home for a few days but at that time my spare TT (Technics SL1200) was playing, I tried the Delos on it also, though I was sceptical if it makes sense to judge the delos on a 1200. The Rega P9 experience was much better but that little HF issue never faded away.

I could hear that issue mostly on the high notes of a acoustic guitar. Those notes had a thin body and leads to a feeling of edgy shimmering HF. You could also try listening to track "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits to hear that effect to some extent.