Lyra • Etna Lambda and Etna Lambda SL Phono Cartridges

"Put the right Etna cartridge in the right system and the results are both musically spectacular and spectacularly engaging."

by Roy Gregory | July 16, 2021

ew would dispute that Lyra’s moving-coil cartridges are amongst the most musically rewarding and certainly amongst the most cost-effective models on the market. But ask a couple of vinyl-loving audiophiles which is the company’s top model and you are likely to ignite a debate every bit as animated as a sports-bar argument over the relative merits of various NFL running backs -- except in this case the Atlas is like Eric Dickerson, while the Etna is more Walter Payton.

Prices: Etna Lambda, $8995; Etna Lambda SL, $9995.
Warranty: One year parts and labor.

Lyra Co., Ltd.
www.lyraanalog.com

AudioQuest
2621 White Road
Irvine, CA 92614
(949) 790-6000
www.audioquest.com

If the first goal of sales and marketing is a clearly defined and evenly spaced product line, then Lyra’s collective efforts constitute an epic fail. It’s not so much the pricing that’s the problem. As Dennis Davis pointed out in his article on the Atlas Lambda, the company’s four models are well spaced and competitively priced, especially when their performance is taken into account. No, the problem in this instance is the existence of twin flagships, and to make the confusion worse, twin flagships with alternative attributes and different prices. Then, just to mess things up even more, each of those models is available in both standard and SL versions, leaving customers looking to buy the best Lyra cartridge to sort through four different options. Human nature seemingly craves a simple solution, with natural assumptions around cost and the reductive appreciation of technological implications leading many to assume that the higher price and lower moving mass of the Atlas SL must indicate its overall superiority. But in reality things just ain’t that simple.

So, just which is "the best" Lyra cartridge? The answer is, of course, that depends. But depends on what? In this case you can divide the question in two: Atlas or Etna, standard or SL? The first is a question of taste or individual preference, the second of system matching and circumstance. So, although this is a review of the Lyra Etna Lambda and its SL derivative, in talking about the Etna cartridges, it’s impossible (or disingenuous) to ignore their relationship to the Atlas cartridges, products that provide context as well as competition for their stable mates.

When it comes to illustrating the often subtle differences between audio components, there’s nothing a reviewer likes more than a good analogy, and in this case, I’ve got -- literally and figuratively -- a classic. The word stereo derives from the Greek term for solid or three-dimensional, which, way back when (and given the existence of the Parthenon, the Elgin Marbles and the misappropriated contents of any number of national museums), related directly to sculpture. In attempting to encapsulate the essential nature of -- and distinctions between -- the Etna and Atlas cartridges, I find myself thinking in terms of muscles and sinews, contours and shape, the very essence of the Greek fascination with form. On the one hand, the original Atlas was all about the carefully posed power and tension, the bunched muscles, balance and proportion, of a classically rendered discus thrower. On the other, the Etna was all about relaxed poise, shading and shape, contours and texture -- rather more Venus de Milo than champion athlete. Musically, that translates into the muscular precision, transparency and dynamism of the Atlas, or the rather more fluid, more richly colored and subtly textured presentation of the Etna. You paid your money and you took your choice -- Dennis Davis opted for the Atlas, while I was beguiled by the Etna. But it didn’t stop either of us from occasionally missing the attributes and casting the odd, envious glance in the direction of the cartridge we hadn’t chosen.

Which is exactly where the new Lambda models come in. With the original Etna a permanent fixture, the arrival of both the Etna Lambda and Lambda SL (along with the capability to swap quickly among them, using three Kuzma 4Point armwands) made direct comparisons between the three cartridges as easy as they were illuminating. With each armwand retaining the precise tracking force and alignment for its matching cartridge, a quick note on VTA and bias settings was all that was required to dial each cartridge in to deliver its best. Even so, trying to carry out a full, three-way comparison was still remarkably involved, so the fact that the issues break down so neatly into two-way pairings was a real boon.

"SL" stands for single layer and refers to the windings on the former. For the Etna Lambda, these have double layers, so the single-layer windings offer lower mass and lower inertia. On the face of it, logic dictates that the SL version will be inherently superior, responding more easily and precisely to mechanical input, converting that input (the squiggles in the grooves) into voltage with greater resolution and accuracy. But in the real world of audio replay, things just aren’t that simple. Jonathan Carr of Lyra believes that the difference in nature between the two cartridges owes more to the single-layer coils presenting a smoother surface that delivers a more consistent relationship with the damping surface and thus improved mechanical behavior. I can’t comment, never having delved nearly so deeply into the interior design of a phono cartridge, but I’m naturally suspicious of such simplistic notions as lower mass equaling better sound. Whatever the reason behind the differences between the two cartridges, that they are different is indisputable once you’ve listened to them.

As a transducer, the cartridge takes energy in one form (mechanical acceleration) and converts to another (voltage). The issue here is how much -- or how little -- voltage it generates. In turn, that raises the question as to just how much voltage the rest of the system needs. Or to put it another way, theoretical performance benefits are a long, long way from actual, deliverable performance and, once you get outside the cozy world of theory, the real world has a rude habit of intruding. So building a lightweight and super-agile sports car should deliver real advantages in a race down a twisty road with a lot of slow-speed corners -- but it won’t go well in a straight-ahead drag race. Any piece of high-performance engineering needs the proper conditions to perform, and a moving-coil cartridge is no exception. What you need to ask yourself is, When your cartridge looks at your system, what does it see? That’s going to depend to a large extent on your phono stage, so it should come as no surprise that when it comes to comparing the performance of the standard cartridge to the SL, the phono stage has a huge bearing on the outcome.

For this review, that list of phono stages included the Tom Evans Groove Plus, Lyra’s own Connoisseur 4.2 PLE, the Jeff Rowland Conductor and the CH Precision P1. Four phono stages might seem like a manageable number, but that’s before you realize that the Rowland Conductor offers three different, transformer-based inputs, the P1 offers both current and voltage-sensing active inputs and all except the Connoisseur offer myriad loading options. Then, just to cap it off, I threw the VTL TL-5.5 preamplifier into the mix, with its hybrid J-FET/tube phono stage. Now, that’s a lot of options!

istening to my resident Etna has the comfortable familiarity of long association. I know what to expect and what it delivers, with its easy sense of musical flow and natural tonality. Working through a few records to set a baseline for sonic and musical performance, it was easy to understand just why I’d opted for this cartridge in the first place. Which left me totally unprepared for the Etna Lambda’s crushing superiority. Almost from the first instant the tip touched the groove, its confident authority and effortless transparency eclipsed the older version.

I executed the switch on Vampire Weekend’s Father of the Bride [Columbia 19075930141], and the increased immediacy, focus and presence of Ezra Koenig’s vocal was slap-me-in-the-face obvious. The acoustic guitar was richer with more body, shape and harmonic layers. Break those things down and they suggest a performance that offers significantly greater focus and resolution, but also an increased response to input. It’s not just that the notes arrive with more concentrated energy, texture to the strings or more articulate diction -- they start and stop much more explicitly, making the shape of phrases and the spaces between individual notes and the "sentences" they make up far more obvious and musically effective. Koenig’s lyrics are as intricate and clever as his melodies, a quality that producer Ariel Rechtshaid matches with his astonishing range of spatial effects and myriad samples. Every time I play the disc, I hear something else. With the Etna Lambda, those revelations become a flood of new information and nuance. That’s never more apparent than on Danielle Haim’s vocals, her voice taking on not just a more natural sense of body and color, but also significantly greater expressive range. It’s a mightily impressive performance -- from singer and cartridge alike -- that leaves the original Etna sounding smoothed over and blurred. Surely there must be some swings to compensate for all the Lambda’s roundabouts. Not a one. The Etna Lambda did everything that made the original Etna so engaging and listenable -- but added immediacy, insight and presence, significantly upping both the levels of communication and ability to convince.

The Lambda updates: what’s different and what stays the same?

The arrival of the Atlas (and subsequent) models signaled the development of what Lyra designer Jonathan Carr dubbed his New Angle geometry. This used tapered dampers to effectively preload the cartridge suspension so that once the tip was sitting in the groove, the cantilever and thus the coils would settle into a more nearly neutral position within the magnetic field. The Lambda models take that concept a whole stage further, employing a stack of polymer discs and a tiny supporting pillow to preload the cantilever, thus creating a composite damper that can be far more precisely tuned, resulting in cartridges that are built to far tighter tolerances. Causal relationships between construction and performance are always tricky, but there does seem to be a correlation between the intent of the design and the resulting sense of focus and concentrated energy in the sound. Listening to the Etna Lambda after the standard Etna is akin to looking through an SLR camera and nudging the focus ring to make everything pin sharp. The resulting image isn’t just clearer -- it has greater depth and impact.

What haven’t changed are the essential electrical characteristics of the cartridges. The Etna Lambda delivers a healthy 0.56mV output (at the standard 5cm/s groove velocity) with an internal impedance of 4.2 ohms, while the SL produces 0.25mV with an internal impedance of 1.52 ohms. The difference in output is critical, with anything under 0.3mV entering into very-low-output territory. That alone should act as a warning to approach the SL with considerable care. The difference in internal impedance is also important, especially if you are going to match the cartridge to a transformer. This is no one-size-fits-all situation, and any transformer will need to be specifically tailored to both the impedance and the gain of the matching cartridge. So, in case you missed the point, a transformer that works well with the Etna Lambda is unlikely to deliver with the SL -- and vice versa. In at least one case (the VTL TP-6.5) the designer offers a transformer tuned specifically to match the Etna SL and that really is essential to getting the best out of the cartridge if you intend to use a step-up transformer.

Outwardly the two new cartridges are identical in color (although the nose piece is now dark olive as opposed to the original’s red, a difference that reflects the sonically significant change to more rigid material), construction and logo, with not even an SL suffix to separate them. In fact, the only way to tell the two apart is using the serial number. I ended up marking the tonearm tops accordingly, so I wouldn’t get confused. In terms of internal mechanical parts, the cartridges also remain essentially unchanged, with the established Lyra stylus profile, boron-rod cantilever and machined-titanium spine. Original Etna and Atlas models returned for service can and will be rebuilt as Lambdas. Compliance remains 12cu, which is marginal for today’s bigger and heavier tonearms. The Etnas work beautifully in the 11” Kuzma 4Point, but the 14” version has too high an effective mass. What is noticeable is that the Lambdas, especially the SL, seem far more critical of setup and tonearm quality. Tiny adjustments of VTA, VTF and anti-skating seem to produce disproportionate dividends in musical terms, with side force being particularly critical. Tracking force is slightly lower, with designer Jonathan Carr suggesting 1.69g (a figure that agrees closely with the 1.68g I settled on -- and probably within the variation in the scales). Even then, it is worth working with even smaller shifts in VTF -- the sort that won’t register on the scales and leave you wondering if you actually changed it at all. But listen and you’ll know -- just like you’ll know when it’s spot on.

Interestingly, the Etna Lambda SL produced superb results in the Thales Statement tonearm, with its in-built tracing-error correction and absence of side force. Likewise, I’m reliably informed that the (functionally different but effectively similar) Schroeder LT is a superb match for the Atlas Lambda SL. It’s almost as if the increased tolerances in construction demand equivalent care in setup, alignment and tonearm design. You have been warned.

One final wrinkle when it comes to the Lyra Lambdas is their running-in behavior. Both Dennis Davis and I experienced a severe dip in performance (and I do mean severe) around the 30-hour mark. It’s a sonic shift that’s worrying enough to make you wonder whether your new cartridge has collapsed. But fear not -- persevere and it comes out the other side even better than before. Is it just a function of the composite damper settling in? Who knows, but discrete inquiries have elicited plenty of corroborating evidence. My advice is to use a cartridge-burn-in disc to run your new baby for at least two days before finalizing alignment and setup. I tend to rely on and can recommend the Clearaudio Cartridge Break In Test Record, which is both widely available and will help in other aspects of cartridge setup.

-Roy Gregory

That explicit sense of space and clarity helps sort out less-than-wonderful recordings too. John Cougar Mellencamp’s The Lonesome Jubilee [Mercury/Mobile Fidelity MFSL 1-222] is a perfect case in point. Ever a favorite album, it has never been a great recording, with a mushy, congested quality that tests a record player’s ability to sort the wheat from the chaff. With the Etna Lambda mounted in the 4Point and on the Grand Prix Audio Monaco v2.0, it produced more drive and energy to tracks like "Paper In Fire" and "The Real Life" than it ever had before -- and if the clarity and separation stopped just short of lucid, the lack of congestion and the intelligibility of both playing and lyrics were a revelation. Slow things down for "Check It Out" and suddenly the sorted patterns and intimate arrangement become clear. The down-home, get-down qualities of the music and playing are still there, but the quality of that playing, the tightness of the band steps up a notch.

But it was a pair of classical recordings that really rammed home the Lambda’s sonic and musical superiority. Caroline Shaw and the Attacca Quartet’s Orange [New Amsterdam/Nonesuch 075597921434] is a recent acquisition that combines startling, captivating music with inspired playing. The purposeful dynamics and concentrated energy of the Etna Lambda bring the stark, dotted rhythms and pizzicato passages to life, the elongated, bowed notes offering vibrantly textured contrasts, while the easy separation and effortless sense of organized pattern captures the spatial leaps as the musical line passes and jumps from one instrument to another. The results are as exciting and engaging as they are dramatic. No lazy afternoon Tea Dance, this. By the end of the fourth side you’ll be breathless -- but reaching for side one to start over. That quality is down to the composition and the playing, but it’s the cartridge that releases that magic from the groove.

The Narcisco Yepes/Ataulfo Argenta recording of Rodrigo’s Guitar Concerto (National Orchestra of Spain [Decca SXL 2091]) has long been one of my touchstones for musical and audio performance, combining superb playing with a spectacular, early-Decca stereo soundstage. It sounds pretty good on almost any record player and the original Etna shone with this LP, its natural sense of musical flow and proportion, color and perspective playing to the music and the recording’s strengths. But it also served to demonstrate just how much higher the Etna Lambda lifts that bar. Instrumental colors bloom, textures are more intimate, as is the controlled physicality and effort that go into Yepes’s playing. The soundstage is characteristically narrow and deep, but it’s the reach-out-and-touch dimensionality and presence that transform the experience. This is a case of “they are here,” and this cartridge and recording put you in the same space as the musicians. The speed and precision of Yepes’s playing, the beautifully measured orchestral accompaniment, Argenta’s masterful direction -- they all combine to re-create the energy and sense of performance, the resolution of space and low-level detail, harmonic textures and colors, making for an astonishingly explicit presentation.

If the Etna Lambda still displays the smooth contours of the Venus de Milo, they’ve taken on some serious underpinnings, still beautiful but now more akin to the Hellenic masterpiece Laocoon and His Sons. (Google it if it doesn’t ring a bell.) There’s an almost hyper-realism to the sculpture’s dramatic intensity, but then if you want to portray the physical intensity of life-and-death struggle, someone being throttled by sea serpents is a pretty good starting point. But it’s not just all those straining sinews and tendons beneath the skin that bring the Etna Lambda to mind. It’s the almost graphic clarity with which it can communicate the intensity of that struggle, the concentrated energy, not just on the surface, but in every tightly bunched fiber beneath it. And just as the Classical era yielded to the more naturalistic Hellenic period, so the Lambda delivers a more natural, contiguous sense of scale and proportion, perspective and flow -- not just spatially, but dynamically and, as a result, temporally too.

By now you’ll probably be thinking that the Etna Lambda seems to have acquired more than a little of the Atlas’s sonic signature -- and you wouldn’t be wrong. The crisper, more emphatic dynamics; the feeling of musical muscle, both in the playing and the notes themselves; the increased presence and transparency; they’re all things the Atlas does well. Yet, this cartridge definitely remains an Etna. The easy flow, subtly delineated tonal colors and fluid phrasing see to that -- as well as ensuring that all that resolution and transparency don’t pull the music apart. The Etna Lambda retains the overall sense of balance that marked the original; it just sits you closer to the performers, allowing you to "see" deeper into the performance.

Having placed the Etna Lambda in context, both of the previous model and the Atlas, it’s time to look at the more complex issue of comparing the standard and SL versions. I assembled a varied cast of phono amplification and embarked on the far-from-simple task of assessing both the standard Etna Lambda and the Lambda SL in each and every combination.

Even so, working through them quickly started to establish a pattern that had me wondering whether or not I was actually wasting my time. The characteristics of the two cartridges seemed so constant, the gap between them simply varying with different phono stages, that I was close to calling time on the whole, painfully convoluted exercise. Fixed value or variable loading, active amplification or transformer input, the standard Etna Lambda’s presence, body and solid dimensionality simply trumped the SL’s quicker, lighter presentation, leaving the lower-output cartridge sounding thin and insubstantial. Starting with Lyra’s own Connoisseur phono stage and then running through the various options on the Tom Evans Groove, the SL never got close to matching the presence and communication, the energy or musical engagement projected by its significantly more enthusiastic sibling. The standard version simply sounded bigger, more confident and significantly more entertaining.

It wasn’t until I started using the Jeff Rowland Conductor that I was able to narrow the gap between the two cartridges. The Rowland phono stage is an unusual beast in that it uses internal transformers to provide MC gain into an active phono stage. It’s something we’re used to seeing with tube-based systems, such as the Kondo SFz transformer and M7 MM phono-stage combination, but it’s definitely unusual in a single-chassis solid-state design. However, Rowland goes further still, offering up to three MC inputs which can be specified for transformer type (standard or amorphous core) and gain (standard or high-sensitivity). With the two cartridges into the standard gain inputs, they both made much of the difference between the laminated and amorphous cores, but the standard version's superiority remained a constant. It wasn’t until I connected the SL to the high-sensitivity/amorphous-core-transformer input that I managed to narrow the gap significantly. It made serious strides in terms of flow and articulation, dynamic range and discrimination, but it still lacked the body and substance, expressive range and drama that made the standard version so engaging. Still, here was food for thought. Given the difference not just in terms of output but also internal impedance between the two cartridges -- and given the sensitivity of cartridge/transformer matching to that impedance, here was the first suggestion that, given a precisely matched step-up transformer (frankly, matching is a necessity if you are going to rely on a transformer in a high-quality system), then the Etna Lambda SL might not just flourish but really come into its own.

But where things finally turned around was once I hooked up the two cartridges to the CH Precision P1’s current-sensing inputs. This took a while longer than expected as my P1/X1 got inadvertently locked down in the UK, so I was already several months into the various rounds of detailed listening to the Lyra cartridges before I was able to recover it. Once I did, it totally revised the situation. This is a phono stage that offers considerable, near-silent gain from inputs that don’t need a healthy voltage to drive them. Indeed, if ever there was an active stage designed to get the best out of the Etna Lambda SL, then this is it -- and it didn’t disappoint. Although I started out listening to the standard, higher-output version, with really excellent results, when I swapped in the SL I really wasn’t ready for its spectacular elevation, not just matching the already impressive performance of the standard Etna Lambda, but bettering it by a considerable margin.

How? Well, for the first time the SL was able to match the presence and power of the standard version, but converting that newfound energy into a more refined and defined presentation. Yet, where the SL really scored was at the other end of the dynamic range. It was simply better in terms of the utterly uninhibited flow and articulation it brought to musical lines and their playing, the clarity with which it revealed not just the space between notes but the way a musician uses that space to define and shape the relationship of one note to another. Harmonic layers and textures took on a finer, almost silky weave, while the low-level dynamic discrimination -- the definition of the weight with which a pianist or guitarist plays a note, the nuances of diction and emphasis a singer imparts to her words -- generated another level of natural expression and, ultimately, realism. These might be the most subtle of differences, but once you reach this level of performance, they are also amongst the most important, because in them you find the human agency behind a performance, the sense of one person (the performer) talking to another (you).

Playing that old favorite New Favorite (Alison Krauss and Union Station [Rounder/Diverse Records 001LP]) is the perfect example. Play a track like "It All Comes Down To You" on the Etna Lambda SL (after listening to it with the standard version) and you immediately hear the added musical insight and resolution; you hear it in the subtle variation of bow pressure on that first, drawn fiddle note; you hear it in the finger action shaping and bending the notes of the steel guitar and in the precise spacing and, elsewhere in the energy and attack of the rapid note patterns that scatter from the banjo. There’s a sure-footed sense of clarity and placement to the individual parts, an unerring purpose and direction to the way they assemble into and become the whole. But where it all really comes together is on the final track, the title track itself. The SL captures the natural rise and fall of the vocal, conjuring its intimate delicacy and wistful, human quality. The measured, downbeat backing that anchors the song is pitch-perfect and rich of texture, the arrangement as a whole following and reinforcing the vocal line. The whole track steps forward, engaging the listener more directly and much more forcefully. If the measure of a great record player (and a great system) is to draw the humanity from the grooves etched in the vinyl, this is a veritable tour de force, all the more impressive for its understated, utterly natural quality -- a quality that just adds to its power.

Of course, the danger in the illumination delivered by all that intimate delicacy and nuance is that it casts an equally deep shadow -- and in the case of the SL, you could be forgiven for assuming that that shadow will take the form of insubstantial and less than emphatic dynamics. Not so. Give it enough gain and a low enough noise floor (which is exactly what the P1 provides) and the sheer energy and impact of the SL’s wider-ranging dynamics easily match those of the standard version -- and better them if your system allows. The transparency, clarity of pattern and texture that characterize the SL’s sound extend into the lower registers, delivering a level of low-frequency subtlety and clarity that many speakers will struggle to match. That long-time benchmark for orchestral dynamics and impact, the Johanos/Dallas Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances [Vox Turnabout/Analogue Productions APC 34145S], is rendered even more impressively, the SL graduating each lift in level, delivering the full crescendo replete with complex instrumental layers and harmonics. There’s a marvelous subtlety to the timbre and harmonics of the timpani and piano (the latter so often a bit part player or lost completely), a textural quality to match the string tone in the violins and winds. Instrumental separation is excellent and the soundstage is not just as broad and transparent as you’d expect but has a palpable immediacy that reveals even more drama in the music and performance. Far from thinning or dismantling the crescendos, the separate layers seem to add to the intensity, creating the feeling of concerted power rather than simple weight.

That focus and concentrated musical energy that so obviously separate the Etna Lambda from its non-Lambda predecessor reach their apotheosis in a properly matched SL. Just play the closing allegro molto from Vivaldi’s Cello Concerto RV419 (Vivaldi In Venice [Chasing The Dragon VALLP008]) to fully appreciate just how powerfully energetic the SL can sound. The vibrant body of Davide Amadio’s cello is an almost physical presence, his vigorous bowing and sharp pizzicato explode into the room, the vivid cut and thrust of the instrumental interplay within the small group is full of drive and vitality. This is the product of a cartridge that has detail and subtlety, speed and attack to burn, grafted onto the energy, presence and substance that make the standard version so musically dramatic. The SL is capable of taking that drama to an even higher plane, communicating more directly, intimately and, above all, naturally. But getting there is far from easy or a given; it’s a very high wire and there’s no safety net. Get it right and the results are spectacular -- but getting it right is far from straightforward and in many cases is simply impossible or impractical. Lyra reports that some customers returning SL versions of both the Atlas and Etna opt to have them rebuilt with standard, double-layer coils and the resulting increase in output. So, note to self: just because the SL can deliver that performance, it doesn’t mean it will. In many cases the standard Etna Lambda will easily and genuinely outperform its SL sibling and will be the cartridge of choice.

Discussing my Etna Lambda experiences with Dennis Davis in the light of his journey with the Atlas and Atlas Lambda underlines not just the significant improvements in the musical performance of both Lambda cartridges, but how those improvements seem tailored to each design, building on their strengths and ameliorating their weaknesses. The Etna has gained muscle and transparency, the Atlas color, grace and fluidity. In effect, the Lambda mods have moved the two cartridges closer together, making them even stronger performers along the way. Given their comparatively modest pricing (compared to other flagship cartridges, that is) that maintains or even extends their bargain status.

But other aspects of the conversation are instructive, not least the different circumstances in which the two cartridges find themselves installed. Dennis’s system is all-tube, with Audio Research providing the phono stage, line stage and power amp. His speakers are compact floorstanders and his room significantly smaller than mine. It’s a setup in which you can easily appreciate the benefits of the added dynamic muscle and authority that the Atlas brings to proceedings. In contrast, I tend to use full-range speakers (often with the addition of serious subs) in a large space with powerful amplification. The power amps vary between tube and solid state, but the phono stages (and, generally speaking, the line stages too) are silicon-based designs. It’s a setup that doesn’t require help when it comes to dynamic range or power, but the tonal color, texture and articulation that flow from the Etna do come into their own.

here does that leave my conclusions regarding the Etna Lambda and Etna Lambda SL? I will underline both the significant step up in performance that these cartridges represent over the previous models and their absolute quality. Make no mistake -- these are genuine flagship products. Reviewing them together, rather than adding to the confusion surrounding the question of which is the best Lyra, has served to clarify the situation. Should you choose the Etna Lambda or the Etna Lambda SL -- or even the Atlas Lambda or Atlas Lambda SL? As I said before, that depends. Hopefully, just what it depends on is somewhat clearer now. It depends on your system and your phono stage, your listening tastes and biases. There is no best Lyra -- just the best Lyra for you. Properly mated to the right system, the Lyra Etna Lambda cartridges can do something special. They can penetrate right to the heart of a recording, revealing both the fact of the performance and its meaning, preserving both its sense and sensibilities. Put the right Etna cartridge in the right system and the results are both musically spectacular and spectacularly engaging.

Associated Equipment

Analog: Grand Prix Audio Monaco v2.0 turntable with Kuzma 4Point tonearm, Thales TTT Compact-II turntable with Thales Statement tonearm, VPI Avenger turntable with VPI JMW 3D12 tonearm; Connoisseur 4.2 PLE, CH Precision P1/X1, Jeff Rowland Design Group Conductor, Tom Evans Audio Design The Groove Plus phono stages.

Preamplifiers: Connoisseur 4.2 LE, CH Precision L1/X1, VTL TL-5.5 preamplifier.

Power amplifiers: Pairs of CH Precision M1.1, Simaudio Moon 860A v2 and VTL S-400 Series II stereo amplifiers; VTL S-200 stereo amplifier.

Integrated amplifier: Mark Levinson No.585.

Speakers: Wilson Audio Sasha DAW with PureLow LO subwoofers, Wilson Benesch Resolution, Stenheim Alumine 5 Signature.

Cables and power: Complete looms of Nordost Odin, Crystal Cable Ultimate Dream or AudioQuest Wild from AC socket to speaker terminals. Power distribution was via Quantum QB8s or Crystal Cable Power Strip Diamonds, with a mix of Quantum Qx2 and Qx4 power purifiers and Qv2 AC harmonizers. Also in use are CAD Ground Control and Nordost Q-Kore grounding systems.

Supports: Harmonic Resolution Systems RXR, or Grand Prix Monaco Modular rack with Formula shelves. These are used with Nordost SortKone, HRS Nimbus and Vortex or Grand Prix Audio Apex equipment couplers, and HRS damping plates throughout. Grand Prix Audio Monaco and Silverstone 4 amp stands. Cables elevated on Furutech NCF Boosters.

Acoustic treatment: As well as the broadband absorption placed behind the listening seat, I employ a combination of RPG Skyline and LeadingEdge D Panel and Flat Panel microperforated acoustic devices.

Accessories: Essential accessories include the SmarTractor protractor, a USB microscope and Aesthetix cartridge demagnetizer, two precision spirit levels (one bubble, one digital) and laser, a really long tape measure and plenty of painters' tape. Extensive use of the Furutech anti-static and demagnetizing devices and the Kuzma Ultrasonic record-cleaning machine.

© The Audio Beat • Nothing on this site may be reprinted or reused without permission.