December 1999

Is the Lydian Beta?
Why, it's Phrygian Awsome, Dude!!!
Review By Bruce Kinch
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  Audiophilia certainly has its share of fetish objects. The "size matters" crowd has their Krells, Wilson behemoths, and garden hose speaker cables. The horny little SE devotees revel in hot bottled tube lust. The rec.audio.opinion gang? Swell, let's not go there. The masochists have CDs, the sadists Home Theater. The Vinylists are hardly immune, either. Ever notice how Linnies get off on a bouncing sub-chassis? Can you admit to a little frisson each time you use your record clamp to screw Jennifer Warnes to the mat? Ever even wonder what it would be like to have a 12" arm on your deck? Used Stylast topically?

Most folks say the Compact Disc killed the LP, but if you observe the changes in the larger culture closely, it's clear that cartridge sales started to decline precisely when it became sexier for men to put diamonds in their ear lobes than in their Hi-Fi. While man's primordial needle-need may survive in the primitive drug and tattoo sub-cultures of the mid-fi mainstream, a new generation of hard-core vinyl junkies has arisen, only to become themselves obsessed by ever more exotic cartridge fantasies. Pound for pound the most expensive objects of desire on the audiophile's lust list, they are small enough to sneak past even the most vigilant spousal inspection. Tiny, precious, and fragile, they allow the ardent audiophiliac to express both ego-enhancing acquisitive urges and the sensitive, caring inner self: the sleeker the stylus shape, the more compliant the cantilever, the kinder one can be to one's beloved virgin vinyl.

Sure, there are plenty of "decent" cartridges to choose from, at every price point from $50 to $7500, and as with other kinds of pickups with similar price distributions, you basically figure to get what you pay for. The more expensive models do have more exotic diamonds, cantilever construction, magnets, and wire. Much of the cost, however, involves not just the "works" of the cartridge, but the housing that encases it. Rare woods, stone, carbon fiber, machined titanium, etc. are often chosen because these materials affect the resonant signature of the system quite differently than the more common and cheaper plastic and aluminum cases of less dear designs.

But the real hard-core stylust is reserved for the indecent cartridges, the brazenly nekkid varieties that dispense with a protective carapace and let it all hang out. What guilt-tormented audiophile has not used a crunched cantilever on a Blue Point Special as an excuse to upgrade? How many gleaming Gliders have failed to survive the impact of a rough landing? Are you really man enough to clean the stylus on your boss's new Grasshopper? Nude, vulnerable, sexy and dangerous, these cartridges seize the audiophile imagination because they promise the ultimate-it's gonna be better naked. Strip off that inhibiting resonant shell, goes the argument, and you remove the resonance-but please, be gentle.

Hello, my name is Bruce, and I'm a Busted Blue Point Special Survivor. Yeah, I was sorely tempted when the Benz Glider was introduced, but I couldn't trust myself so soon after I'm sorry. In the years that followed, I'd learned to feel safe mounting my chunky Grado woodie, or the plain but oh so companionable van den Hul MC-10. Then, at CES, deep in an influenza delirium, I saw the Lyra price sheet: the new Lydian Beta- $995. Shyly, I asked for a review sample. People do crazy things in Vegas.

A few weeks later, and the modest Lyra box (you are not paying for extravagant "high-end" packaging here) sat on the kitchen table along with my Logic turntable, Audioquest arm, and an array of set up tools. I opened it, fingers trembling, sure a single slip could mean disaster. I peeked under the foam padding and exhaled with a sigh of relief. Yes, the Beta is naked, but it comes with a see-through plastic shield that not only protects the stylus but encloses the whole shebang forward of the output pins. You can look but not touch. Somebody at Scan-Tech believes in safe set-ups. The shield can be kept on the cartridge when not in use, good news for households with curious children or obsessive feather-dusters.

Indeed, installing the Lydian Beta was a breeze. The plastic shield did its job as I threaded the supplied bolts (Lyra cautions against using other ones: even the threading is precisely spec'ed) and fitted the leads; the prongs were neither too large or small, and clearly color-coded. At that point, it was off with the protective gear and play for keeps. Using my Dennesen SoundTraktor alignment jig, the Beta lined up just forward of the mid-point of the headshell slots in the AQ PT-8 (a standard Linn geometry arm). Enough of the front of the top plate protruded to permit precise squaring with the protractor's grid. Lyra supplies a mirror faced alignment template, but the spindle hole was slightly too small for the Logic's spindle. (There is no international standard for the spindle diameter, amazingly enough. I rarely find an LP too snug for the Logic, but I later reamed out the template with the file I use for balky discs and confirmed its accuracy). The mirrored surface also allows the user to check the stylus/cantilever azimuth, i.e., the verticality when viewed from the front. (It was spot on.) The cantilever is boron, and sure enough, longer and skinnier than any klutz like me would want. At the tip is a rather radical 3x30 µm ratio Ogura PA line contact stylus, a combination which promises excellent tracking and detail resolution, a high tip resonance (50 kHz), but also some pretty critical VTA/SRA alignment issues. By the way, the Beta isn't totally buck-naked. For reasons of either dust exclusion or decorum, the nether regions of the "works" are discreetly swathed in a bit of what looks like Dermacel tape.

The main structure of the Beta (as I'll dub it) is machined from a solid block of aluminum, and it weighs 8g, about 10% less than my MC-10, which allows the counterweight to balance a bit closer to the pivot, basically a good thing. Lyra recommends setting the vertical tracking force between 1.6 to 1.75g, using a scale accurate to +/-.05g. This is a narrower range than some other pickups allow, and is apparently intended to optimize the coil's internal alignment. I set it at 1.7g, and then used the Hi-Fi News and Record Review disc to set anti-skate and check the arm resonance, which was just about ideal at around 10 Hz (compliance is a moderate 12cu at 100 Hz. It would not like a very low mass arm). I used the Primyl Vinyl VTAliner level the arm, but eventually added a bit of back-tilt; VTA adjustments were indeed critical, audible and significant.

The output of the Beta is rated at .5mV at 3.54 cm/sec, or .7 mV, 5cm/sec (JVC and CBS test disc standard measurements, respectively, if you make comparisons), a moderately high level among MCs. I was "just" able to use it straight in to my Herron VTPH-1MM, which is rated at 44dB gain. Background tube rush was barely audible at the listening position at normal listening levels, and always masked by the very low level vinyl surface background noise. I prefer doing this to avoid any sonic contributions from a transformer during a review. Otherwise, 50-60dB gain should be about ideal, but make sure the phono stage has adequate headroom. The Beta's internal impedance is 4 ohms, and Lyra recommends transformer step-ups with input impedance no higher than 10 ohms be used, ideally 3-6 ohms. If your MC stage supports varied resistive loading, Lyra endorses anything from 50 to 47K ohms, according to taste. I had no complaints whatsoever with 47K, probably because the tip resonance is well past audibility. If your system is on the bright side, you may want to load the cartridge to 1000 ohms or less.

Most cartridges need a bit of "run in" before they sound their best, and the Beta was no exception. First impressions were of crisp HF and a somewhat lean mid bass, but the overall tonal balance improved rapidly, and the Beta was sounding really good after about 25-30 hours. Many cartridges, especially MCs, tend to have a droop in the response curve through the upper mid-range and lower treble, offset by a sudden rise at high frequencies as the tip resonance is approached. This can sound appealing, even impressive, in some systems and with some recordings, but it is hardly accurate. As the Beta's tip resonance is way up around 50kHz, it sounds "flatter" through the upper octaves than many, more euphonic cartridges, but it never seems harsh or glarey on good recordings. Bad recordings are in no way flattered, however. Imaging is a bit more forward than with more laid back cartridges, but the characteristic clarity extends well back into the deep soundstage. The bass range is admirably taut and well defined, and dynamics are very good indeed. The sense of effortless speed on plucked string attack and decay led to an evening's orgy of hot-picking LPs: folk/bluegrass/jazz from Grisman, Rice, Kottke, Hedges and Friday Night in San Francisco, a disc absolutely made for the Beta. On the classical side, massed strings and choral forces were very well resolved and free of smear, and individual instrumental timbre was excellent: that's a French oboe! On complex material, the cartridge's "speed" brought increased transparency to orchestral textures. I've been playing a lot of Testament reissues against EMI originals of late, and the Beta brings out the best in both. Jazz and rock were primary beneficiaries of the Beta's detail, pace, and dynamics-but harsh, over-bright, or compressed LPs need not apply. The lack of time-smear really lets you hear a good rhythm section anchor, push, and pull a piece against a soloist's improvisations. The 6 dB HF boost of most vintage rock Mo-Fis was exposed, but blessedly free of distortion. Really "good" distortion, of the Hendrix variety, is clean, too.

The Beta tracks like a demon (only the slightest break-up on the demanding band 4 of the Hi-Fi News test record, and nary a problem with real world LPs) and will extract scads of information from the grooves without any undue emphasis on surface noise or other vinyl artifacts. It deserves the best possible ancillary equipment. When I used the Beta with various phono cables, the differences were striking-yet another indication of the cartridge's inherent neutrality-so consider yourself in the market for a cable upgrade if you want to get the most from this baby. Just one tip, though: use a stylus brush, not your finger?

There are several excellent cartridges available for around $1000 (Jeez, there should be!), but in replacing the original Lydian with the naked Beta at the same price, I can't help suspecting Lyra has Zeroed in (sorry!) on the $750 Glider owners. The nudie Benz has been a best seller with the Rega 3/VPI HW 19Jr crowd because of its smooth, musical presentation and easy-going nature. There's not really been an obvious alternative for an upgrading audiofetishist without a megabuck budget, but who lusts after a bit more detail, texture, clarity, excitement, and pace than the Glider can offer. Well here it is.

Manufactured by Scan-Tech, Japan
Distributed in the US by Immedia
2443 Magnolia St.
Oakland, CA 94607
Tel (510) 893-2573
Fax (510) 893-2579

Reprinted from The Primyl Vinyl Exchange newsletter. The PVX Newsletter is a resource for collectors of rare, unusual, and significant recordings. Each issue may feature reviews and articles, discographies and biographical profiles, interviews, record show schedules, price guides, and evaluations of equipment for vinyl replay, storage, and cleaning. PVX is an open forum for collectors and audiophiles, and welcomes submissions in all such categories for publication. Subscribers to PVX are entitled to free advertisements to Buy/Sell/Trade. Subscriptions to PVX are $15/six issues, $20 International.

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