LYRA DELOS CARTRIDGE TOO BRIGHT, THIN AND SHRILL SOUNDING

Before you give up on this cartridge, unless you already have given up on it, I recommend that you send it to SoundSmith or any retipper who offers an inspection service. As someone else said, these devices are made by humans, and it is quite possible that there is a fault in the construction of your particular sample. For the nominal cost of inspection, it is well worth it to make sure you do not have a defective cartridge. Typically such defects can be easily and cheaply corrected.Alternatively, send it to Lyra for inspection. Surely there is no one more qualified.

The Delos is real fast sounding and not particularly romantic, I can see how some might not like it.  I thought it was a ton of fun.

That said it's a bugger to get set up properly, if you aren't aligned correctly it'll let you know for sure.  The alignment, VTA and VTF have to be dialled in to hear what this cartridge can really do.  

If you're 100% confident it's set up correctly and you don't like it after the requisite 100 hours time to move on...

When I heard a Demo of the Delos it was on an all tube system.  Mine is solid state. There is the problem. I would not recommend this cartridge to anyone unless you have tubes which roll of highs and add body and warmth to the sound. 

What tube gear ?

@jeffvegas
If the Delos hasn't been modified or retipped by a non-Lyra company, and you suspect that there may be something wrong with it, you are welcome to send it back to us (Lyra) via the dealer that you purchased the cartridge from, so that we can check it over, verify that everything is in good shape, correct anything that is not, or let you know if something has been damaged.

Alternatively (if the original dealer has quit or moved), you can send the cartridge to the distributor in your country, and explain that you want to have us check it over.

We request that you include a short note telling us what you find wrong with the cartridge, being as specific as possible. And perhaps a list of the partnering equipment (turntable, tonearm, tonearm cable, stepup device, phono stage) so that we can decipher if there is an obvious mismatch.

We do this as standard policy; it shouldn't cost you anything other than getting the cartridge to the dealer or sending it to the national distributor.

We won't be able to correct anything if the issue is with your setup, or if the issue is personal preference, but at least we can make sure that the cartridge works well and sounds good (to us).

I will add that your description of the Delos is quite atypical of the feedback that we get from the vast majority of people who have used it (including those with solid-stage phono stages - tubes or semiconductors shouldn't be an issue as long as the phono stage was designed intelligently).

kind regards, jonathan carr

I am replacing the Plinius Koru phono stage this week with a BAT VK P12. If a 8000 dollar tube phono stage can't make this cartridge sound good then it's not my 12k dollar Krell amp, it's not my 5k dollar Ayre preamp or the 5k in cabling. The Delos with be replaced.  I'm having a VPI guru come over and check the calibration of my Classic one turntable with the Delos. adjusting azimuth and tracking force does not change the sound of the cartidge.  It only affects imaging. The Delos sounded fantastic when I listened to it on all very expensive McIntosh tube gear. Maybe throwing some tubes on it will give me the sound I'm looking for. 

@jeffvegas 
Even small changes in tracking force should alter the sound of the Delos quite a bit, which suggests that your current setup has not managed to extract all of the performance that the Delos has to offer.

Nonetheless, I wish you the best of luck with whatever you replace it with.

kind regards, jonathan carr

Jeff, Tube phono stages per se do not "roll off" highs.  Perhaps a tube phono stage may have an audio bandwidth out to 100kHz.  Whereas a solid state equivalent might go out even farther, but you are not going to hear that particular difference.  You'd be more likely to hear a difference in bass definition, but such generalities are dangerous if taken as gospel.

What the OP is describing sounds more like a poor setup.  Tracking force too light, VTA way off, arm mass way too light.  

Nothing can fix a poor setup except improving to a good setup.  That's why there are turntable setup specialists.  

Jeff - do you understand jcarr IS Lyra ?…

also, i have a $3k Herron ( FET and Tubes ) that is magic with a Delos….

Yes, I understand who J Carr is. I'm just frustrated my 1700 dollar purchase isn't giving the sound I expected. My analog now sounds digital. The Delos tracks beautifully, is the quietest cartridge I've ever heard(don't hear hardly any clicks and pops on records) and is EXTREMELY detailed. Way too much detail. It's lean, bright and too harsh and shrill in my opinion. I have it surrounded by expensive equipment.  I think moving coils are overrated.  An Ortofon 2m Black will absolutely blow the Delos out of the water. I have it at 1.75 tracking force, VTA perfect.  Azimuth is done by eye, hard to adjust on a VPI CLASSIC TURNTABLE.  I just sold the plinius koru phono preamp.  maybe that was the problem.  A BAT VK P12 coming this week.  It could transform the Delos. I will report back. 

i wish you the best ;-) the absolute best

I read the craziest stuff on audio related threads. Tonearm adjustments don't affect the sound of a cartridge...MC's are overrated...Lyra Delos is shrill sounding...too much detail

 This is absurd.

Either your cartridge is malfunctioning or you're overexaggerating. 

I think moving coils are overrated.

I think we have found the crux of the issue here in terms of the sound the OP prefers.  It's all a matter of preference and what sounds good but I suspect his tastes lean towards less resolving and a hint of warm distortion in his signal.

Can we keep the old, boring, and endless MC vs MM/MI debate out of this thread, 3 easy?There does seem to be a consensus already that the OP’s experience with the Delos cartridge is very atypical and that he might want to consider having the cartridge inspected for defects. Now he was invited to do that by the guy that makes the cartridge. You can’t do better than that as an endpoint.

My apologies for taking the bait @lewm when the OP stated MC's are overrated.  I should I have taken the high road.

MC's are COMPLETELY overrated.  

"When I heard a Demo of the Delos it was on an all tube system. Mine is solid state. There is the problem. I would not recommend this cartridge to anyone unless you have tubes which roll of highs and add body and warmth to the sound. "

Perhaps your tonearm is not damped enough.  It takes a while to dial it in.  Try a lower tracking force.

There is the problem. I would not recommend this cartridge to anyone unless you have tubes which roll of highs and add body and warmth to the sound.

We spec our all-tube phono section to 100KHz. Tubes can go much higher; color TVs in the old days had to have 10MHz response in their chroma amps... bandwidth isn't the issue! Tubes can go just as high as transistors.

MC's are COMPLETELY overrated. 

Just for the record (if you'll pardon the expression) your Hana is a MC cartridge as well. That's not the problem.

Since the Hana worked so well for you, I'd be inclined to think that there may be a problem with the cartridge itself, which can happen- its happened to me in the past. Before you sell it off at a loss, take it back to the dealer and have it checked out or replaced. I would also check with Lyra to make sure your arm is considered compatible with the cartridge. The cartridge has compliance and the arm has mass; together they make up something called 'mechanical resonance' and that must fall between 7-12Hz or Bad Things happen.

My ortofon 2m black blew the Hana and Lyra out of the water!!!  MOVING COILS ARE HIGHLY OVERRATED.. Tubes cannot have frequency extension like a transistor.  Mr Atmosphere, I sold your amps back in the 90's at a dealer in Southern California.  Had a pair of your OTL's running the top of my Vandersteen 4a's. Nice amps, but they were NOT a neutral sounding amp and DID NOT HAVE the air and transparency of their solid state equivalent.  

As a matter of fact I hope some designer builds a balls to the wall Moving Magnet. Like a 5k dollar moving magnet. I'll buy it. 

Are we beginning to smell the troll yet......?

I remember when J.Carr posted on audiogon about this new design from Japanese company TOWING.

Two models available: Suzaku and Seiryu

*** It’s Coreless straight-flux system (read below):

"As its name suggests, the coreless straight-flux system has no core material, with the left and right coils arranged in a V shape directly above the magnet. With that, the stylus tip picks up fluctuations in magnetic flux produced by the fine sound grooves, reproducing them into sound directly and thus accurately.

This system does not generate any of the issues associated with MC cartridges, with which the coil output line moves irregularly within the magnetic flux and leads to sound disturbance, or with MM cartridges, with which responsiveness deteriorates due to a long magnetic path length.

Moreover, this system shares the high level of maintainability of MM cartridges. The stylus (needle, cantilever, assembled magnets), coil, damper, and more, are all constructed of interchangeable designs, which allows stylus replacement at 1/10th the original cartridge price.

The coreless straight-flux system is a singular technology that not only retains the advantages of existing MC and MM cartridges but also eliminates the drawbacks."

As a matter of fact I hope some designer builds a balls to the wall Moving Magnet. Like a 5k dollar moving magnet. I’ll buy it.

@jeffvegas unfortunately it’s $14k - $16k and you can read this review or that review.

The coreless straight-flux system adopted for the SERIYU “Blue Dragon” was conceived by Hiromu Meguro, former design assistant of the Grace F-8 cartridge and principal designer of F-9 cartridge, when he was with Shinagawa Musen Co. Mr. Meguro worked on the basic designs of the TX-1000 and Dragon CT players and on the design of the Center-Search mechanism during his time at Nakamichi Corp. Then, the notion that moving magnet (MM) cartridges were inexpensive and moving coil (MC) cartridges were of higher grade pushed to the back of Mr. Meguro’s mind this system’s concept, which was categorized as an MM device despite dramatic differences compared with conventional MM cartridges. This system, which fell short of commercialization even in analog audio’s heyday, is being revived thanks to today’s state-of-the-art technology.

MC’s are COMPLETELY overrated.

I think modern MC cartridges are overpriced for sure, but they have so many fans worldwide, while few people aware of something new on MM territory (like TOPWINGS for example), anyway those new Coreless Straight-Flux cartridges priced accordingly for their buyers (very expensive).

My ortofon 2m black blew the Hana and Lyra out of the water!!! MOVING COILS ARE HIGHLY OVERRATED.

Many people are happy with the same Ortofon model, if you prefer an MM cartridge over more expensive MC it’s fine and nothing wrong with that. I don’t know why people trying to prove something to you. Having different cartridges it’s fun and not all cartridges are good to our ears.

In my opinion there are many better MM than Ortofon, but most of them are discontinued models, you know than MM era is gone, the best MM designed and made in the 80’s. I’ve been looking for them for many years, compared them to more expensive modern MC and quite happy about the sound! If you prefer MM it’s fine. Some of my absolute favorite MM are: AT-ML180 OCC, AT-ML170 OFC, Grace LEVEL II and F14 (Sapphire, Ruby, Boron, Ceramic, Beryllium versions), Pioneer PC-1000 mkII, Stanton CS-100 W.O.S. , Pickering XSV/5000 and 7500. You don’t have to pay $5k for a decent MM, most likely $1k - $3k for the ultimate MM, but It must be a NOS unit to blow your ba**s away.

As you can see for something revolutionary new (MM) they want over $14k today, welcome to the High-End world.  

I feel very bad for Jonathan Carr for stooping so low as to respond to the bottomless trench in which the OP obviously inhabits. These things develop so predictably. First what appears to be a reasonable plea for help and then a premeditated troll. I own a Lyra Etna Lambda and while value is relative, I know how superb it sounds and how much spine tingling hair-raised-up-on-the-back-of-the-neck thrill it gives me on a fairly routine basis. I also know how difficult it is for an Average Joe to properly set up a VPI arm with a microline stylus. But it is clear as the nose on Jimmy Durante's face (that dates me!) that the OP is either a troll or a victim of VPI's deficits or most likely, both. 

Let me be second in line for the Delos. I will absolutely buy it for $500 right now if @phill55 falls through. Please. There's no reason for you to put up with that POS cart. I guess I could put up with it for a little while. OK, $750 because I'm doing you a favor. I hate seeing this kind of disappointment among audiophiles. It's too sad for me to take. Fewer than 250 hours? OK, $850 then, just because I'm feeling charitable. I have 5 Lyras and a sixth would help remove them from the market where they're doing all this damage. I don't know why I thought they sound so fantastic in my system when clearly I was so dead wrong. PM me with your PayPal address and let's put an end to the disappointment.

fsonicsmith, I have forgotten more than you will ever know about high end audio. I have been in the hobby for not only 30 plus years but have sold the equipment in a high end store. I have sold VPI turntables and am proficient in setting up a unipivot arm. 

Please, let's not dump on @jeffvegas . Audio is a hobby, with the analog field being particularly so. There is nothing wrong with having strong opinions and personal preferences.

I would much rather have an audiophile who prefers MMs or MIs over MCs than an audiophile who doesn't listen to analog at all (smile).

Ideally Lyra would receive back the Delos and find something amiss with it that explains what Jeff is having to go through. But as things are right now, with no indication of impaired tracking, or channel separation, or LP grooves turning grey/white, the cause is a mystery.

@jcarr


while we have you here and helping, indeed advocating nice, can you look at the PM i sent you about Delos and a Triplaner. You marked my simple ? as “ spam “I asked Bruce H. my ever awesome dealer in San Diego and my recollection is he sent me to you.

Bruce gets fine sound out of a VPI with a Delos, top line tube phono / pre, SS Vandy amp and Kento speakers….best sound i have heard out of a unipivot…

so a vote for returning cart to Lyra for checkup

Anyone answering this thread just fell into a bear trap! ROFL The OP loves his HANA.

I bent a cantilever on the Hana ML I had and it is either going to be repaired or replaced at the dealer.  I'm thinking of just trading that Hana AND the Delos in on a KLEOS. I am extremely picky of my sound and maybe the Delos is too low end of a cartridge. Also, I am extremely hard on Cartridges due to having a few beers and getting clumsy with the tonearm. I will have the Delos inspected. My friend has a Kleos and told me I should have just by passed the Delos and gotten it. 

@tomic601 
Sorry I don't think I have seen your communication; or if I did I must have failed to follow up on it.
Could I ask you to resend it?
If you use the title "Delos and Triplanar" for example, it should be easy to search for it.

What makes you think the Kleos is more durable?
I am thinking you need a Grado or a stack of 2M Blacks…

BTW I like the Bronze and Black, great values, user replacement stylus, solid company, etc

Jeff - wish you the best man

In all seriousness, if you get your Lyra, whatever model (I own / owned Helikon stereos and monos, Kleos stereos and monos and an Atlas) dialed in correctly you will be rewarded hugely.

Having said that, alignment, VTF and VTA need careful attention. Small adjustments in any of those parameters are audible to my ears. Not everyone is up to that attention to detail. I am because I flat love what I hear. Having said that, I have complimentary synergy at work in my system. Lyras fit the ticket. They might not with a system already tending to bright.

@jcarr thx, will do. love my Delos btw.

@jeffvegas 

My advice is to not even think about the Kleos until it can be made clear why the Delos isn't performing in your system.

If you spend even more money, and the bottleneck persists, you will be really upset (smile).

kind regards, jonathan

beer proof  cantilever may not exist….or sober but overzealous housekeeper…….

Have never owned a Lyra anything. But I have learned something from this thread. Jonathan Carr is a class act.

@jeffvegas

On the one hand you say

MOVING COILS ARE HIGHLY OVERRATED.. 

And then you say

I bent a cantilever on the Hana ML I had and it is either going to be repaired or replaced at the dealer. I'm thinking of just trading that Hana AND the Delos in on a KLEOS.

Why would you try another MC if they are so overrated ?

Given that you say

 I am extremely hard on Cartridges due to having a few beers and getting clumsy with the tonearm. 

My suggestion - stick to MM's with a replaceabe stylus - that way you can keep a couple of spare styli for the rough nights. Also dont forget Moving Iron cartridges like Nagaoka (MP500) and Soundsmith ( Soundsmith's stylus replacement cost is quite modest).

I was wondering if jcarr would chime in on this obserd rant.

A couple things, jcarr is an absolute class act (obvious by how he has treated @jeffvegas with respect after shytting all over his design)

I own the Ortofon 2M Black and if you think it stomps all over that Lyra then you obviously have something wrong going on (in your system or in your head) tough to tell which at this point.

No matter what the price tags are on your current gear it has nothing to do with system synergy.

If you are adjusting the tonearm and hear no difference and you say it's hard to adjust a VPI uni pivot for azimuth.... Well I'll save the insult here since you already stated that you have forgotten more about audio than the rest of us ever knew.

Listen to jcarr. He will bend over backwards to help you.
I know from personal experience.

Not that you deserve it but I'll give you the contact again in case you forgot already.

Apatrick@audioquest.com

Also, I am extremely hard on Cartridges due to having a few beers and getting clumsy with the tonearm.

Translation-I am extremely hard on fellow audiophiles due to having a few beers and getting clumsy with my manners. 
Fwiw, my beerbelly friend(emy), I have been in the hobby for 45 years. How you can claim to "have forgotten more than you have ever known" is inexplicable, though again, the above explains a lot. 
I agree that an expert at TT set-up can make a unipivot sound very good, but there are inherent limitations to the VPI unipivot due to microscopic movement of the arm in the X-axis, the horizontal plane. A very good gimbaled arm does a better job of allowing all vibration picked up by the cantilever/stylus to be converted as is ideal into electromagnetic signal. A phono cartridge is like a loudspeaker transducer in reverse. A phono cartridge in a VPI unipivot arm is like a loudspeaker transducer mounted to it's cabinet with a bunch of loose screws. You know all about loose screws :-)

HAHAHA, Very funny fellow goners. Now this is turning into a VPI bashing party. I say enjoy your cheap gimbaled tonearms with its horrible friction and lack of adjustments.  To do a gimbaled tonearm correctly costs a lot of money. You're not going to find ANY Gimbaled tonearm at an affordable price that beats a VPI Unipivot.  

Not a VPI bashing party, bit it sadly has morphed into unipivot vs gimbal thread.  Ugh.

Well Jeff it's a good thing I have the 10.5i Uni Pivot on my Super Prime Scout as well as the 10 inch 3D Reference Gimbaled on the way. (Ordered June 30 right before the price hike).

We'll see which arm my Lyra Kleos likes best.

BTW, reach out to Alasdair yet or are you still enjoying all the attention you're getting?

Not a VPI bashing party, bit it sadly has morphed into unipivot vs gimbal thread. Ugh.

No, it is fundamentally a troll thread. 
As I stated in my first contribution to this thread, there is a known pattern to these kinds of threads. 
The OP starts out sounding sincerely interested in finding some helpful tips though even the OP itself should have raised eyebrows;

Have had a Lyra Delos Cartridge for the last month and [improper conjunctive-is English the OP's first language?] have any of you goners noticed a [sic-should be "an"] elevated treble, [sic, improper use of comma] shrill thin bright sound from this Cartridge [why is "C" in "cartridge capitalized?] ? I wish I had my HANA ML back. This Lyra sounds horrible!!!

But soon it becomes apparent that the OP is not looking for advice but rather has his mind made up and only wants attention by attacking a well-regarded piece of kit. Then we find out the OP claims to be an expert at cartridge set-up and yet paradoxically entertained ideas that this cartridge needs tubed gear (utterly ridiculous) and then after allegedly pining for his trashed Hana ML states that he only likes MM, not realizing that the Hana is also MC. 
So no, while I did mention his unipivot arm not being the best vehicle for a Lyra cartridge twice, this thread has not morphed or drifted into a unipivot vs. gimbaled arm thread. It has developed into just one thing-an embarrassing cringe-worthy train wreck for our drunken OP. 
Let's examine this beaut of a post;

My ortofon 2m black blew the Hana and Lyra out of the water!!! MOVING COILS ARE HIGHLY OVERRATED.. Tubes cannot have frequency extension like a transistor. Mr Atmosphere, I sold your amps back in the 90's at a dealer in Southern California. Had a pair of your OTL's running the top of my Vandersteen 4a's. Nice amps, but they were NOT a neutral sounding amp and DID NOT HAVE the air and transparency of their solid state equivalent.  

So now our drunken sailor says his Hana was trash too as his Ortofon 2M "blew it out of the water". He claims he sold Atma-Sphere kit and yet he does not even know how to spell their name! He claims, without knowing me, to have "forgotten more than [I] have ever known" and yet he blurts out this gem;

When I heard a Demo of the Delos it was on an all tube system. Mine is solid state. There is the problem. I would not recommend this cartridge to anyone unless you have tubes which roll of highs and add body and warmth to the sound.

How can anyone with 35 years of claimed experience including being a high-end dealer make such a categorical statement about all tubed gear? This is not just cringe-worthy, it is vomit inducing!

fsonicsmith, please return to listening to your 1990's NAD gear believing its high end. lol

Tubes cannot have frequency extension like a transistor.

ROTFLMAO... this statement is laughably false. 

Had a pair of your OTL's running the top of my Vandersteen 4a's. Nice amps, but they were NOT a neutral sounding amp and DID NOT HAVE the air and transparency of their solid state equivalent. 

I've had a good number of customers running the 4as full range that would beg to disagree with you on that point. I showed with 4as at CES one year- Richard walked into our room and complained (maybe that's not the right word- he was actually pretty happy) that we had better sound than he did. Just FWIW and that sort of thing, our amps have power bandwidth well past 100KHz; 1 watt power is flat to 200Khz and the output section by itself is good to well past 50MHz (the risetime is about 600V/uS which few transistor amps can do; the voltage amplifier input is what is bandwidth limited). So yes, tubes can have plenty of bandwidth extension like a transistor.

You're not going to find ANY Gimbaled tonearm at an affordable price that beats a VPI Unipivot.  

That depends on what is meant by 'affordable'. The Triplanar uses lower friction bearings than the VPI so might be a candidate for contradicting this statement...

If you spend even more money, and the bottleneck persists, you will be really upset (smile).

This appears to be where things sit. Without knowing why a perfectly good cartridge isn't working right its a good bet that future exploits will be doomed to the same fate- those who do not learn from history etc....

fsonicsmith, please return to listening to your 1990's NAD gear believing its high end. lol

I have been a member here for over nine years as opposed to your less than two year participation here and unlike you, my system is posted. If you were to look you would see that it is not close to your bad guess. Why not share with us exactly what your system consists of?

atmosphere, I had an Electron Kinetics Eagle 2 on the bottom of the 4a's. Your amps while sonic champions in the midrange, suck in the bass department.  I suggest you listen to an Audio Research engineer and start using a hybrid circuit in your amps for better full range sound. 

Attacking Atmosphere, one of the most helpful guys on this forum, says it all.