Lyra Delos tracking abilities


Hi everyone,

For nearly four years I have been enjoying my Lyra Delos, using it with a 510 ohm impedance load (which I found gave the best balance between stereo imaging and an organic sound).

Lately though, having spent some time listening through headphones, I heard distortion and mistracking creeping up. The cart has been used for 350 hours and it seems the tracking abilities for which it is renowned are not here anymore. I used a cheap AT-VM95e cart I had on hand just to compare the other day and the mid- and end of side distortion is actually quite similar. 

What do you think could the problem be? Apart from this distortion, the rest is fine. The cartridge was aligned as perfectly as possible, alignment was checked and rechecked, the turntable is dead level. I have tried to clean the stylus before every side, following cart designer Jonathan Carr's advice, but I am still quite disappointed as I thought the cart would track perfectly for like another 500 to 1,000 hours maybe. Now I am quite shocked at the sonic similarity between the expensive Lyra and the cheap Audio technica (apart from the highs of course).

Thanks for your help guys!

 

anthos314

Showing 2 responses by viridian

The first thing that I would do is use an inexpensive USB microscope to see if there is any build up, or glazing, on the stylus that resists cleaning with conventional methods. If it is there, you can usually send it to one of the retippers for a cleaning at very nominal cost.

A bit more information, please. Who did the alignment, and has the tracking force been verified using a second guage? What tonearm are you using? Is this a problem on every record played, or only a sub set? When you say you clean the stylus after every side, is that with a brush, gel, Magic Eraser, or other means? And, most of all, good luck in finding a resolution to the problem.