Brand new Lyra Delos - skewed cantilever

Hi everyone,

thank you for all your very useful advice and info.

I am very happy with my Lyra, some surface noise which was present with my old Hana sl has disappeared and it is very nice!

However, something I did not expect: a couple of my records have a skip or a loop that was not there when I used to read them with the old cart. It happened this morning on one record I had never had problems with, so I took the antistatic brush and brushed the record again (my records are clean and stored in antistatic sleeves, but you never know) and everything was fine. So it seems the cart is very sensitive to dust in the grooves, even tiny particles.

I took two pictures of the stylus with my phone just to be sure it wasn't the stylus (it has 20 hours under its belt now).

Photos are nicely done but useless for evaluation of the stylus tip, nevertheless I’d suggest a cleaning.

@lewm , I just got a WallyScope and plan on publishing pictures of styluses once I get use to it. 

@jcarr , Thank You for your input. I have already ordered a Channel D Seta Plus which will provide both a voltage and current input. It is a very wide band version of the circuit used in the Lino C which got uniformly rave reviews. I ordered it with an RIAA board but I also have the option of using digital RIAA correction.  I plan on ordering an Atlas lambda SL shortly. Thank god you did not mount any diamonds on it :-)

OK now I don’t know what to do. Another record, another skip.

Now I’m afraid of listening to another record for fear of damaging it.

Is there any product I could use to completely clean this stylus?

I’m wondering if it is a problem with the stylus, my records or my setup. Arm is parallel to the record, antiskate is 1.75, VTF is also 1.75 and I have tried to set the tonearm and cart very precisely.

Maybe I should send the cart back to Japan for an inspection of the stylus? I am really confused.

All my records used to be fine before I had all those skips. Now I've got to replace 2 of them! 

@anthos314 , couple of things to consider, I am a Delos user for several years.

• The LP may be damaged and the Delos is simply picking that up since it may be digging deeper than the previous cart was able to.
• Make hyper sure that azimuth is as perfect as can be, the Delos will perform at a very high level once you achieve this, as well tracking will be positively affected. I use a FozMeter to do this, NEVER my ears as the adjustments are so minute you need to do it electrically.
• Regarding loading, do what JCarr states and that is make sure you are using the lowest cap cable you can get so you can load higher at the phono stage. I went from night and day performance originally using a very high cap cable (550pf) and loading at 121ohms on my Musical Surroundings Nova II. The sound was fine, I honestly thought is was really good!. Then I read an amazing thread on WBA forum that JCarr contributed to and I purchased a phono cable with 70pf/mt and set loading at 475 ohms (per the Delos instructions) and holy smokes!!! The seas parted, my jaw dropped....more resolution than I could imagine and the dynamics were insane, still are. The low end shakes my bones.....
• To extract the most from what the Delos can do requires patience and virtually perfect setup. The New Angle design means the top of the cart must be 100% parallel with the surface for magnet/coil alignment. If you do what Lyra suggests you will be rewarded with amazing reproduction.

Enjoy!