Moving coil with a bit less leading edge

You will certainly get a more rounded, less edgy sound with a non-stone Koetsu (i.e., not the jades, or coralstone, etc). But, that comes with some woolly quality and overly prominent (and slow) upper bass.

I like Allaert cartridges for a smoother and refined sound while not giving up too much in dynamics.

Syntax raised a good point about cartridge arm compatibility. The Lyra cartridges have metal bodies designed to convey vibrational energy from the cartridge body into the arm for the arm to dampen/dissipate. The arm must be well designed for that task to get the most out of those cartridges. In some threads, Jonathan Carr, the designer of Lyra cartridges mentions some arms he considered well up to the task (sorry I cannot remember which arms are mentioned).

Pani,
I hope you will get to try your Lyra Delos on a better tonearm than stock Technics SL-1200 direct drive table. Don't even think about Shilabe with that arm.

Opus88,

Your comments about wanting a little less edge to the initial transient attack and more natural decay to the notes is really better addressed by the kind of phonostage (as well as the rest of the amplification train). That describes the tube sound vs. solid state more than one cartridge vs. another cartridge.

>>> ...the sounds I most frequently hear at live orchestral concerts rarely display the kind of clean, tight contours quite a few audiophiles prefer...

If your experience of live orchestral music is that leading edges are rounded or that the sound is other than *very* crisp and clear, you need to sit in acoustically better halls (or at least acoustically better seats).

Come sit next to me in the Belding Theater in Harford CT, where the HSO plays (and brilliantly too, under our new Music Director, Carolyn Kuan). We have season tix for two of the four best seats in the house. The sonics are crisp, clear, enormously dynamic and highly revealing... more so than ANY stereo system.

I suspect this excessive crispness you're objecting to is an artifact added by the system. Rather than trying to paper over it with a schmoozy cartridge, stick with a revealing cartridge and track down the source(s) of the problem.

My purist $.02, FWIW, etc. :)

The unique ability to pick up the trailing edge or the decay of musical instruments is exactly what I find so appealing about some of the best MM cartridges I have been playing with for the past year. I especially hear this on solo piano music with a really good MM, and I think it has something to do with the superior tracking ability of MMs. In fact, some of the posts here remind me of a debate around the virtues of MC vs MM cartridges. But there are many very expensive MCs that I have not heard, so take it with a grain of salt. I too am curious about the Miyajima cartridges and do plan to indulge in the near future.