My great sounding Lyra Dorian is dead. The diamond is worn out. This saddens me since I love how the cartridge sounded in my system. It will be sorely missed.
But a death also brings change.
So I since I love the Lyra sound I started to look for a replacement. However I was in for a nasty and most disturbing surprise. My lovely Dorian is no long in production. I can here you say already "but what about the Lyra Delos?" Now I will readily admit that this Delos would be a worthy successor. Would it not be for the asking price. When I bought my Dorian a few years past the Dorian was priced for less then $1000. If my memory serves me right I payed close to $800. However the Delos costs a mighty $1600. This is too rich for me.
In days past a Delos would cost maybe $100 more then a Benz Ace and a little less then a Benz Glider. Now the most basic Lyra surpasses them both in price.
So with this said a reasonable person cannot say that the Delos is the new Dorian. So will the in the future again be a "budget" Lyra?
The 2013 Music Direct catalog states that a $500 trade in with the return of a used Lyra cartridge will be given with the purchase of a Delos cartridge. That would bring the price down to $1150.
My dealer gave me a nice trade in for my Lyra Dorian. However the new element will be a Dynavector. He recently sold a Dynavector however the owner liked the sound of the card very much and decided to upgrade to a Dynavector higher up in the line. So the dealer had a Dynavector with less the 100/200 hours that he could sell for a nice price.
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