Anyone using a Lyra Delos yet?

In a way it is a discussion for every cartridge, for every Set Up, for different records and so on.
SRA

Let us have a look into the Delos manual:
"... set height of tonearm pivot so that the Armtube is parallel to LP surface... thicker LP's will require tonearm pivot to be raised, and thinner to be lowered..."

Well, with some tonearms it can be done, the one from continuum with its special "bow" will require some work :-)

But anyway, what is REALLY mean is another Headline in the manual

"Use Your Ears"

:-)

Let me just briefly add, that - if one is really serious about VTA/SRA (whatever one likes best...), it is all about that the contact area of the stylus is "in line" with the cutting angle of the record on your TT right now.
Thats why a VTA is "groove-compliant".
There is a good an logic reason, why VTA on-the-fly has some advantages if one really wants to fine-tune his front end set-up.
And this indeed has to be done by foot (i.e.: ear.....).
Much better focus and soundstage on one system compared to the other often is only a matter of 1-3° - and may change with the next record which was cut by a different cutting head in a different angle.

It's many years since I owned a 501, but from I can remember the 501 was neither warmer or colder than the Delos.
Just different.
For me the reason that the 501 was a little bit ( not much ) warm was that it softened the atttack of the transients ( in some way like a Benz ).
The Delos is a little bit warm WITHOUT softening the attack and IMHO a WAY better cartridge than the Shelter 501.

Cmalak:

Thank you for doing the calculation. Can you clarify what it means to be at the upper end of the desired range? How far toward the extreme ends of the range (or outside the range) would you have to go before you experienced sonic degradation? Also, I'd be curious how my Dyna XX2MKII scores when the formula is applied. I'm told this cartridge matches up very well with the JMW-9 but I've never seen what the resonant frequency score for this combination.

Dodgealum...I believe that as long as you stayin that 8-12Hz RF range, you are fine. I will let others who are more experienced in vinyl than me interject here and expand on this but I think you are still ok. I am attaching a link to the RF calculator I used so you can plug in different combinations of carts and tonearms to see how things match. Click on "Freek's Resonant Frequency Calculator" here to download the Excel spreadsheet: http://www.theanalogdept.com/cartridge___arm_matching.htm. Hope this helps.