SUT for Lyra Clavis Evolve 99

EAR MC-4. Very flexible and built like a tank. The MC-4 has 3 ohm, 6 ohm, 12 ohm and 40 ohm taps. The 3 ohm tap is 30x voltage gain and the 6 ohm tap is 24x. The 40 ohm tap is 10x.

How much gain does your phono stage provide? I run my phono stage in MM mode which provides 37 dB gain. Since net dB increase = 20 x log10(Voltage Gain), the MC-4 at 10x voltage gain is basically adding 20dB - total 57 dB for me. I use a Clearaudio Stradivari which is 0.7mV and 30 ohms.

Using the 3 ohm tap for your Lyra, you would have 29 dB gain and at 0.4mV, the phono stage woud see an voltage of 12.0mV. The 6 ohm tap would be about 27.5 dB and see a voltage of 9.60mV. When I bought my EAR, I did speak with Tim de Paravacini and he felt that you had to approach 14.0 mV to overload a MM portion of a well-made phono stage.

You might find it difficult to ID an SUT that will offer less gain at the low impendance you need to match. Can you make any adjustments to your phono stage?

I am no SUT expert, but that's my two cents.

Good luck.

Sorry I shuld've said all SUT's specified with lower IMPEDANCE are designed for low output voltage cartridges(the low impedance sut's higher gain charaacteristic is appropiate with these)and the Lyra is a medium output cartridge therefore the volume dial is close to no gain when I use the transformers with low impedance otherwise it will be too loud.
I use an Air Tight ATC-1 preamp's phono section specified for mm cartridges, I am not sure of the gain at the phono stage

The Air Tight ATC-1 preamp doesn't offer any adjustment in the phono stage loading or capacitance. I have read of people changing the 47 kohm resistor in other preamps assuming that the ATC-1 has one which I bet it does, but I have never played with these things.

I don't know the price of the Nagra equipment but I guess I am more into buying a SUT for cost savings. I have a perception of Nagra being expensive equipment.

Using the Clearaudio Stradivari with the 40 ohms tap (10x voltage) seems perfect "on paper" as Flyfish2002 explains it but as he says it is going to be difficult to find a transformer for the Lyra. The problem is the volume pot of the preamp has to be SO LOW it is not nice with the transformers with high gain/low impedance. I would like to get close to the cartridge impedance with the SUT impedance as Lyra recommends it (below 10 ohms).