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
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Hi ​​​@michaellent:

I agree with @tomic601 and @solypsa that a tonearm with only 8.5g effective mass may not bring out the best sound that a Kleos is capable of. No doubt that the combination will track well, but possibly with reduced energy in the lower octaves and lessened dynamic impact.

The Lyras will work OK in tonearms of 10~12g eff. mass (for example SME Type V, Technics SL-1200G), but will sound progressively better as the effective mass increases. Normally I'd suggest 16~18g as the sweet spot, but they also sound exceptionally good in super-rigid, heavyweight arms like the SATs and Kuzma 4-Points (including the SAFIR-9).

As suggested by @tomic601 , you could add weight to the headshell, but that is an added complication which you may prefer to avoid (given that this will be your first foray into MC cartridges).

Regarding an SUT, the 5.4Ω coil impedance of the Kleos should not give any difficulties to most SUTs.

However (and this applies to low-medium output MC cartridges in general, not only the Lyras), most MM-gain phono stages incorporate capacitance at their inputs, which is necessary for equalizing the signal from high-inductance cartridges (MM / MI / IM), but is neither needed nor particularly desirable for an SUT. An SUT performs better with very little capacitance between its output and the input of the phono stage, whether due to a interconnect cable which is excessively long and/or has more capacitance than it needs to, or capacitance which is part of the loading scheme for MM / MI cartridges.

In closing I recommend first searching for an MC cartridge that is known to sound good in the Pro-ject RPM tonearm, next work out how much gain needs to be added by a stepup device to make your Aric Audio Special phono preamp happy, and then decide if you would like to use a transformer or headamp for said step-up device.

hope this helps, jonathan carr (Kleos designer)

PS. Can more manufacturers of MM-gain phono stages offer defeatable input capacitance, for use with SUTs??? 😉

Many tube based MM phono stages use 12AX7 as input gain tube. 12AX7 has high Miller capacitance, so I don’t know how you’d defeat that . This has been going on for decades(mating a SUT to a 12AX7 input). Do you see it as a real problem?

I did check with Aric. He recommended of 1:10 winding and did not see any detriment to do what I have planned, from the SUT perspective anyway. 
also: FROM ARIC: Hi Michael, My MM phono stage does not use any capacitors at the input so there’s no worries regarding connection of SUTs.

sumiko/project looks very similar to the Kleos, but I suspect the quality is not nearly the same.

 @jcarr are we speaking to compliance resonance issues for my arm and the Lyra?

KLEOS Dynamic compliance: 12 x 10-6 cm/dyn (@100 Hz?) at 8.8 gm

SUMIKO Songbird low MC is a cartridge often shown with my TT.

12×10-6cm/dyn @ 100Hz  at 8.5 gm  and it’s about $1000 less and cost

Both of these cartridge/arm combinations resonate at ~11 Hz.  (that’s high no doubt)I can do the hard math, but I haven’t yet and doubt it will make any difference to that aspect
Please tell me what I missing. Before I make a mistake. I know just enough to get myself in trouble. I’m chasing this because of the dynamic range of the cartridges’ is vastly different at the low end. I listen to classical music and rock.
Bent