Lyra and OMA


My first endeavor into moving coil. I’m thinking of a Lyra Kleos MC Cart and OMA SUT. Anyone want to speak to that. Please?

Bent

128x128michaellent

A key role of a tonearm is to function as a mechanical high-pass filter for the cartridge.

Roughly speaking, above the resonance frequency the tonearm stays still and allows the cartridge to follow the LP groove, below the resonance frequency the tonearm moves to alleviate the cartridge cantilever and suspension from having to reproduce non-music inputs. These include off-center LPs (horizontal perturbations at 0.55Hz), warped LPs (largely vertical perturbations, generally considered to occur around 5~6Hz, although the affected frequencies may be higher if the warps are steep), plus the act of cuing a cartridge onto an LP (mainly vertical perturbations, with affected frequencies depending on whether an elevator mechanism is used or not, how much damping is applied to the elevator, and how quickly / slowly the cartridge is lowered if the cuing is done by hand).

Therefore, choosing a cartridge / tonearm resonance frequency that is on the high side may be good for tracking performance, but not so great for sound, as the tonearm will move to cushion the cartridge from LP groove signals that it should be tracking.

If there are no issues with the turntable suspension, including the stand structure and floorboards, and the motor(s) are quiet, like @mijostyn I tend to prefer the sound of a cartridge / tonearm resonance frequency in the lower 8Hz ~ upper 7Hz range.

However tracking performance (as well as pop / click noise levels) are also impacted by bearing design, counterweight design, and bending / twisting resonances of the headshell and armtube (a completely separate issue from the cartridge / tonearm resonance), with less rigid / more resonant tonearms more likely to benefit from setting the cartridge / tonearm resonance to a higher frequency.

Conversely, super-rigid tonearms like the SATs or Kuzma SAFIR-9 are likely to sound better with cartridge / tonearm resonance frequencies that are lower than would be prudent with most other tonearms.

hope this will be useful to someone, jonathan

@jcarr , Way to go Johnathan. You have designed what is to my ear the finest cartridge I have ever listened to in my system. My other cartridges are fine units but one does not match with my phono stage well and the other while having more gain rounds over the details just enough to lessen the frisson. The Altas SL has a way of sounding very detailed without any edge whatsoever. The ascending violin of Vaughn Williams The Lark Ascending brings tears to eyes. I have never heard it reproduced this accurately without any pain. The same holds true for female voices. I have no words to describe the reproduction of #21 "In Trutina" of Orff's Carmina Burana. 

Thank You, 

Mike