Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

Every pick-up mechanism – whether moving-magnet, moving-iron [HFN Nov '21, HFN Jan '23], strain gauge [HFN May '21], 'optical' [HFN Jan '19, HFN Feb '21, HFN Dec '22] or moving-coil – has its 'sweet spot' among all the individual design compromises. MC pick-ups employ very powerful fixed magnets that develop a focused magnetic field within which the coils move, attached to the rear end of the cantilever. The more turns in each coil, the higher the achievable output, but this adds to the overall moving-mass, the coil impedance and self-inductance which, variously, compromise the achievable high frequency response, tracking, phase linearity and transient performance. Reduce the number of coils, and the moving mass, impedance and inductance are all reduced to good effect, unless the output is now so low that the sensitivity and noise of the accompanying phono preamp swamps all these gains...

Lyra's SL version of the Kleos features a beautiful, low-mass, slot-mounted 3x70µm diamond [see inset pic] and has half the number of coil turns for half the specified output (0.25mV versus 0.5mV) and half the internal impedance (2.7ohm vs. 5.4ohm). In practice the Kleos SL will generate closer to 0.33mV (re. 1kHz/5cm/sec) and so falls within the compass of a good, low-noise phono stage offering +70dB gain and with the option of 10-100ohm input loading. Otherwise a 1:10 (+20dB) step-up transformer will bring the output of the Kleos SL into the range of a good MM phono stage. In the realm of ultra low output MCs, Lyra has found its own 'sweet spot' with the Kleos SL. PM