Akiva or Titan


I am looking to replace the Arkiv B in my Linn LP12. I am trying to decide whether it is worth the extra $1500 to go with the Lyra Titan.

One concern I have is volume. With the Arkiv B in my system, I really have to crank up the volume. (My system is listed under "2 Channel Basement Stereo") Will either of these cartridges exacerbate the problem?
kinsekd

Showing 2 responses by r_f_sayles

Kinsekd,

I thoughly enjoy my Lp12 with an Ittok LVII arm and Akiva cartridge. I'm giving it 62db gain from a Aesthetix Rhea and it sounds beautiful. Sorry but I have not compared the Titan in the same deck. My only impression between the two is that the Titan wasn't as quiet for surface noise but, the decks and arms were differant, so I can't say for sure. The Akiva is a low output cartridge with recommended 50ohm loading as opposed to your old Arkiv B with 100ohm loading and the Titan is 47ohm. What is the gain available from your Audio Research Reference Phono stage? I would believe it would offer enough. If Jtimothya has the AR numbers right you should be fine.

Is your math right? If I'm not mistaken Linn will give you 1100.00USD for your Arkiv B as long as it still has a cantilever attached. Not to mention the trade on the Akiva some day. That would bring down the price to roughly that of a Lyra Helicon (and Lyra offers zero trade in value). Happy Listening!
I stand corrected. Sorry for the misinformation all. My intention was certainly not to discredit Lyra as I find their scan-tech manufactured cartridges and also the ones provided for Linn to be outstanding in the market place of many great cartridges. I had one friend that got the run around and was told that Lyra would give him nothing on trade and that is my only experience. In retrospect, that may well have been a dealer problem. Happy Listening!