Suggestions for replacement cartridge

[diceman]

Having trashed my Lyra Dorian I am looking for something else to break! I have been using a used Denon DL103 and despite my best efforts I can't break it and to top it the sound is a considerable step backwards from Lyra.

I am using an Art Audio Vinyl 1 phono stage that came with the upgraded Hovland Musicaps and a Partridge 1:6 SUT. The turntable is a Garrard 401 with Audionote V2 silver wired arm.

Ideally I am thinking of buying a used cartridge as I have little experience of house sounds. There seems to be a bit of a following for some of the upper end Ortofons, Shelter 501 and Dynavectors, any suggestions>

Any suggestions??

 

[monya]

Trade in your trashed Dorian for a Delos which is excellent

 

[Tel]

All Lyra's are eminently trashable. If you are that hamfisted get something that comes with a stylus guard and has a cantilever slightly thicker than a hair.

 

[Pussycat]

Trade in your trashed Dorian for a Delos which is excellent

Seconded. 25% off the new cart. Fantastic upgrade. Will last thousands of hours (unless trashed). Has stylus guard. What's not to like?

 

[Guest]

If you liked the Lyra sound then the trade in is worthwhile. Otherwise give Benz a go :^

 

[AmDismal]

Leftfield suggestions would be a Decca (Super Gold probably the pick, love to hear a Jubilee) or a Panasonic strain gauge (eBay, they pop up every month or so)

 

[Cable Monkey]

One of the lower Transfiguration cartridges. Axia or Aria. Perfect for the Partridges.

 

[diceman]

Thanks for the ideas, some food for thought.

25% off a Delos works out at £750 so very over budget. To be honest rather than this option I would probably be better off going for a new Dorian at £649 as there are still a few floating about it seems.

I would comment that ideal requirements are a lack of clicks and pops on old vinyl (not much of mine is new) and making iffy quality vinyl sound good. The only negative thing I can say about the lyra was that it injected a fair bit of detail and excitement at the top end (which my current system needs drastically). As such it easily surpassed cd replay. Now this may be considered a positive attribute but it does mean (or does it?) that when I replace speakers or swap my amps back to valves when child is older and obtained a better balance through cd the lyra may end up too forward?? I ideally would prefer to obtain good balanced sound from both sources.

The decca has been something of interest for a while and the strain gauge cart is interesting too, do I need a special phono stage for it?

Out of the suggestions above do any have an even response? I started with an audio technica atf3 as my first mc cartridge back in day and that was also quite toppy but great fun if matched right (again it caused a problem with cd though).

 

[AmDismal]

The Decca is not flat - it is bright and tends to exacerbate record noise.

The strain gauge will indeed need a dedicated phono stage, it works in a completely different way. You'd probably need to build it! That said, they go for £300 or less, so you'd have budget. See if you can convince Pete to build himself an upgrade so you could have his

 

[RSand]

I have a Dorian too and although it does have an ever so slight top end lift its anything but harsh so I wouldn't be too worried about it being too forward. Buy for the sound/kit you have now not what you might have tomorrow, if the new cart sounded like your cd you might be somewhat disappointed with 'the upgrade'.

Having said all that I would love to try a different cart at some point too as thats the thing about this hobby we always want to know the shade of green the other lawns are

 

[diceman]

Sorry, I didn't mean harsh in anyway from the Lyra. It was more brightly lit than cd and significantly better than CD. I don't want the new cartridge to sound as bad as CD! Ideally I would like CD to sound as good or closer to how the Lyra sounded.

I already have most of my kit, it is just boxed up whilst the child is educated with some restraint ;-) The main lounge system is currently Acoustic Eneregy AE2, LFD PA2, Morgan Audio S500 valve pre, Kinshaw DAC and SB touch (as well as the vinyl setup). I know the system sounds a bit flat & lifeless in its current form. The hopeful plan is to reinstate my existing World Audio WD88VA in place of the LFD PA2 and Apogee Caliper Sigs in place of the AE2s but neither are remotely child friendly.

I think if Adams comments are accurate (and a few have shared similar comments) that the Decca will annoy me, to get a decent one it seems you need to get it rebuilt which could be budget busting with the price of well used examples.

The strain gauge sounds very interesting, I need to research a bit to ascertain how the response curve deviates from RIAA. My brief search indicates it needs a bias voltage across it, I assume tweaking a spare D3A based phono stage is therefore not sufficient and a speacial build is required.

Hmm more options

 

[i_should_coco]

The strain gauge is interesting, I think it sounds really good and is interesting to me from a purely technical point of view.

It does require a specialist 'decoder', not really a phono stage, it's essentially a variable resistor rather than a generator, so you need to feed it a bias current and read the output as the resistors is modulated. A CCS or choke is appropriate.

Because, unlike most cartridges, a strain gauge is a displacement rather than a velocity transducer the frequency response naturally has a 6dB/octave roll off, which sort of mirrors the RIAA curve. Sadly, it's not enough, as the RIAA curve has a shelf in the middle, so this needs to be introduced (basically a shelf response of 6dBish starting at 500Hz and ending at 2kHz) or it sounds dull. The other issue is that one channel needs phase inversion as records are cut out of phase. I used to change speaker cables, but now, with the digital crossover, I can just introduce EQ and invert channels as required. It's easy enough to build into a stage if necessary, though.

 

[Pussycat]

Thanks for the ideas, some food for thought.25% off a Delos works out at £750 so very over budget. To be honest rather than this option I would probably be better off going for a new Dorian at £649 as .......

For the sake of £100 you'd buy into the old Lyras, and an inferior one, rather than the universally favoured Delos? Can't understand that, I'm afraid. Maybe the Benz would be kinder to dirty records, but I believe they don't come with stylus guards (what a design fault !). I've had two Lyras in the past, Clavis and Helicon, and they're both durable and effective on a large range of arms and phono stages. Am a Koetsu user, so not pushing Lyra !!!!!! Just think this is your logical way forward

 

[diceman]

Fair point. I wasn't aware that there was much difference between the Dorian and Delos TBH. I was also basing my assumption that I may be able to get 25% off the new Dorian but that is probably hoping.

 

[monya]

Agree with Pussycat - the Delos is a significant upgrade and the 25% is accurate.

 

[Werner]

I have a Dorian and a Delos, and I have reviewed the Shelter 501. The Dorian betters the Shelter, and the Delos betters the Dorian and challenges my Allaerts. I also find the Lyras about the best-built and easiest/safest to handle of all cartridges I have tried.

 

[RSand]

I've read that the dorian responds well to retipping with a better diamond and ruby cantilever. Might be worth looking into, the its the right kind of cost and an upgrade too. Have a look on VEngine for info

 

[Pussycat]

I also find the Lyras about the best-built and easiest/safest to handle of all cartridges I have tried.

Yup. Agreed, and easy to set up overhang and cue, too, though I'm not sure you'd need to change the former; always worth thoroughly checking alignment, though.

 

[ridley]

Fair point. I wasn't aware that there was much difference between the Dorian and Delos TBH. I was also basing my assumption that I may be able to get 25% off the new Dorian but that is probably hoping.

Hi

£486 from Divine audio with like for like trade in. http://www.divineaudio.co.uk/lyra-dorian-moving-coil-cartridge. The Dorian is a great cart & the later ones are built in house & better than the first ones.

Cheers Simon