New Delos cart

I have a Delos. I do not hear a rising high end at all. It sounds completely neutral in that regard. It is loaded at 183 ohms into a lundahl 1941. And why would you say that it sounds fine on good Analogue Production records but wrong elsewhere? I find it hard to believe that the vast majority of recordings have a rising top end, or conversely, that Analogue Production records are all rolled off in the highs.

Maybe your hearing in the higher frequencies is better than mine?

FWIW, I also do not find the Delos to be lean and/or analytical in my system. I keep reading that this is the Lyra house sound. But it does not apply to the Delos. Each recording sounds distinctive - as they should. The Delos reveals the positive and negative attributes of recordings so clearly that I have no doubt that I am hearing a good chunk of what was captured. Great performances with solid engineering are magnificent to listen to - and there are thankfully many such records to choose from.

As far as musical attributes are concerned with respected to cartridges, I place timbral accuracy the highest. Listening to Mozart's woodwind divertimenti I don't want to have to guess what instruments are playing. The clarinet, oboe, flute and cor anglais can sound rather indistinct with respect to one another. I don't have that problem with the Delos. Same goes for hearing the voices in string quartet music. I know of no more difficult tests for judging timbre reproduction, and the Delos passes easily.

Last night I was listening to Debussey played on the restored Siena pianoforte. The nuances of timbre on that instrument are fascinating to listen in to.

So I can't see how the Delos is defecient in the area of timbre. It strikes me as natural and accurate, at least in combination with the rest of my system. Now it is also true that I had to do some tube rolling in the phono pre to get that to happen so it could be that I compensated for the Delos. But judging from the sound through my ss phono pre, I don't think so.