Lyra Titan i with a Manley Steelhead....settings??

Dear Mark,wonderful feedback.Thanks,from someone,like me,who loves new and interesting feedback.Just for the possibility of getting a different view from others...Harmless fun!!
So sorry to hear about your pal!!I truly know "some" of the emotions you must feel,as I have sadly lost four family members,and a dear friend in the last 18 months.
We "do" move on,but I think it all makes us a bit stronger too....Nice to have passionate interests to give us a lift....My dad always knew this!!
Best.

Hey, cjfrbw.....just to confirm, I have been experimenting and am finding I like that 25 ohm Z setting. It just brings the cartridge alive, especially in the bass. Adding more seems to lean it out. (But, I didn't understand how you equated the 5.5ohm internal resistance of the Titan i to that 25ohm Z setting )??

And, interestingly, with my solid state system pre-amp, putting the Manley on gain of 60 (vs 55) and using both halves of the triode tube gives my sound more "roundness and lushness"....maybe more "tube-like"? :) 65 is, however, too much of a good thing.

The turntable is now 'definitely' kicking cd-ass!!! Before all this, it was the other way around.
All it took was replacingthe Helikon with the Titan, adding the Manley with some Harmonic Technology Silver tonearm cable, and then connecting the Manley to the system with Valhalla. (I'm joking about 'all it took'). A lot of money, but in the end worth it.

I especially love the Titan-i cartridge!

Thanks for all the help and opinions.

With coil inputs, the optimal power transfer occurs when the impedance of coil input is as close as possible to the cartridge impedance, which with the Steelhead would be the 25 setting for a Lyra with internal impedance of 5.5. With MM input and no coil, the rule of thumb is to use an resistance that is 20-50 times the cartridge impedance, which would be above 100, although according to taste and experimentation, you might like to go as high as 47k to get more 'air' from the cartridge. Again, you can tune to taste, even for the coils, although the volume will drop for the MC input above the closest impedance setting.
Input impedances are different for coils and straight MM amplification stages.

You should continue to experiment. I have the Steelhead and have used a Titan i as well as the Airtight. The Titan is extremely VTA sensitive, compared to the Airtight. I also had better success using the MM inputs, setting @ 100 if memory serves. Of course, I am using horns and certainly didn't need the added brightness that I seemed to get via the MC inputs. Parts of the spectrum seemed very alive, but the MC input also seemed to create an unevenness in the spectrum, top to bottom, with certain frequencies brightly lit, and quite airy, and others rather attenuated. Maybe I was hearing ringing, or some kind of mismatch, but I spent a fair amount of time horsing around with it. The Airtight sounds far less spotlit than the Lyra, but very musical. Enjoy. BTW, NOS tubes seem to make a big difference in the Steelhead, if you really want to play around with it.

I agree with Whart about the extreme VTA sensitivity of the Titan. A change of as little as .3mm of height at the armpost (Vector arm, which is 9" in length), makes a substantial change in the sound.

JBatlanta, as you have noted, going to a higher numerical value of resistance in the loading (which actually DECREASES loading because it is in parallel), causes the bass to thin out. You would get a similar result by increasing VTA (raising the armpost of the tonearm). Thus, the two adjustments have a similar, but not identical impact on sound. This means that if your VTA is too high, you could sort of compensate by choosing a lower value loading; this would sound okay, but not ideal. I think it might be worthwhile to change VTA and then reset your loading by ear to determine whether you can get even better results.

The 25 ohm value you settled on seems to be low (a lot of loading), based on my experience and that of another Titan owner. Our phono stages are different, though we both use tube stages with a step up transformer at the front end. It could be the right setting in your setup, but it could also be compensating for too high VTA. That is why I suggest experimenting with lowering your arm just a bit, and then seeing if a different loading would get you to an even better result.

Have fun.