SUT for Lyra Clavis Evolve 99

Not sure what your budget here is. Both Nagra phono stages have built in transformers and seem to be a great match with the Lyra's. I'm using a Lyra Skala with the Nagra VPS/VFS.

The Nagra BPS maybe just what you're looking for. Several great reviews on it.

Just a thought.

EAR MC-4. Very flexible and built like a tank. The MC-4 has 3 ohm, 6 ohm, 12 ohm and 40 ohm taps. The 3 ohm tap is 30x voltage gain and the 6 ohm tap is 24x. The 40 ohm tap is 10x.

How much gain does your phono stage provide? I run my phono stage in MM mode which provides 37 dB gain. Since net dB increase = 20 x log10(Voltage Gain), the MC-4 at 10x voltage gain is basically adding 20dB - total 57 dB for me. I use a Clearaudio Stradivari which is 0.7mV and 30 ohms.

Using the 3 ohm tap for your Lyra, you would have 29 dB gain and at 0.4mV, the phono stage woud see an voltage of 12.0mV. The 6 ohm tap would be about 27.5 dB and see a voltage of 9.60mV. When I bought my EAR, I did speak with Tim de Paravacini and he felt that you had to approach 14.0 mV to overload a MM portion of a well-made phono stage.

You might find it difficult to ID an SUT that will offer less gain at the low impendance you need to match. Can you make any adjustments to your phono stage?

I am no SUT expert, but that's my two cents.

Good luck.

Sorry I shuld've said all SUT's specified with lower IMPEDANCE are designed for low output voltage cartridges(the low impedance sut's higher gain charaacteristic is appropiate with these)and the Lyra is a medium output cartridge therefore the volume dial is close to no gain when I use the transformers with low impedance otherwise it will be too loud.
I use an Air Tight ATC-1 preamp's phono section specified for mm cartridges, I am not sure of the gain at the phono stage

The Air Tight ATC-1 preamp doesn't offer any adjustment in the phono stage loading or capacitance. I have read of people changing the 47 kohm resistor in other preamps assuming that the ATC-1 has one which I bet it does, but I have never played with these things.

I don't know the price of the Nagra equipment but I guess I am more into buying a SUT for cost savings. I have a perception of Nagra being expensive equipment.

Using the Clearaudio Stradivari with the 40 ohms tap (10x voltage) seems perfect "on paper" as Flyfish2002 explains it but as he says it is going to be difficult to find a transformer for the Lyra. The problem is the volume pot of the preamp has to be SO LOW it is not nice with the transformers with high gain/low impedance. I would like to get close to the cartridge impedance with the SUT impedance as Lyra recommends it (below 10 ohms).

I think the rest of the explanation of the MC-4 is interesting perhaps it is the solution, if a bit too expensive. Thnak you

Alanpiga,

Another factor with SUTs is that the SUT will "step down" the impedance that the cartridge "sees" at the phono stage by a factor of the voltage gain squared.

So, for my set-up, at the 40 ohm tap, the gain is 10x the voltage (0.7mV to 7.0mV). My phono stage presents an impedance to the cartrdige of 47k ohm. With the SUT, the stepped down impedance is: 47k ohm/(10^2) = 470 ohm.

This works fine for my Stradavari, as Strats like between 250 - 500 ohms. However, if it did not, my phono stage allows me to use resistors soldered internally to adjust the impedance. The same calculation would be done on this altered impedance to determine the actual impedance the cartrdige sees:

Altered impedance with resistors/(10^2)

Likely that AirTight permits the same.

There are other SUTs out there that are more cost effective. The issue is the transformer windings, which if done less than perfectly can f****p your sound. Tim P is know to be anal retentative about his transformer windings. I paid for "insurance".

I rarely see used EAR gear on AudioGon - maybe satisfied owners??

Send me an e-mail message if you want to chat offline.

Flyfish2002, is there any reading you can recommend in order to learn the "math" and theory that you seem to know well? thank you

Out of curiosity, what happens when you use the cartridge directly into the phono without a SUT? That will net you 24dB less overall gain.

Give it a try and don't listen for absolute sonics but to get a feel for the gain and noise you have in your system.

dave