Dear Peter Ayer: My Kleos is already broken, take almost " nothing " for the cartridge been brock.
In the other side, start a thread on Kleos vs Akiva could be interesting but I see a " trouble " , please ask you how many of your audio friends own the Akiva cartridge? and how many Agon threads did you read it about Akiva owners and how many?
Linn Akiva is designed mainly for Linn analog rigs: especially the Ekos tonearm. The cartridge comes with three mounted holes that's a characteristic of Linn tonearm headshell.
Other characteristic is that the Akiva comes with dedicated
wires to be connected directly to the tonearm headsell male connectors and not all tonearms accept it.
To connect my Akiva in my system I have to make a modification changing the Akiva wires female connectors/pins for male ones.
Today the owners of cartridges as Atlas, Ana, LP-S, XV 1t, Goldfinger Statement ad the like I can tell you that even they do not know of the Akiva existence and less heard it.
That's a pity issue because IMHO the Akiva can compete at that so high level quality performance for " penauts " in comparison wiht all those really high cartridge prices$$$$$.
Btw, I don't finish yet with the Kleos, I will try harder trying to achieve better quality performance, I need that the Kleos be more " human ".
Regards and enjoy the music,
R.