cartridge Benz, Koestu, Lyra

Steve, you win, you get to be the next Stereophile reviewer. Seriously, very nice evaluations, and I am glad that you are enjoying the Helikon. It is a fine cartridge, and you are right that it mates well with the JMW arms. The JMW's are one of the warmest arms out there, so the Lyra's speed balances well. I had the Lyra on a JMW 10.5 arm and a Basis Vector 3 arm, I definitely thought it sounded better on the JMW. The Vector 3 is more revealing than the JMW, but not as warm. The leanness that I noted with the Helikon is more apparent on the Vector 3 arm.
VPI was packaging the Lyra Helikon with some of their tables/arms when it first came out.

It would be interesting to hear the Helikon side by side with the Argo i, as Kehut mentions above, to see if the newer generation Lyra's are getting warmer. I remember when the Helikon came out it was hailed 'the warmest sounding Lyra yet'. It was sweeter than the previous Parnassus da Capo. Perhaps with the newer designs (Skala, Argo i, etc) Lyra has moved even further towards warmth. Lyra still is much faster than the Koetsu, Benz cartridges though.

Great review, thanks.
John

Steve,

I second what John sid about the Review, and I am totally alligned with your review. I have tried the benz Ruby 3 but that is about it. I Love the Helikon Mono and the Skala Stereo. I do not have the VPI Turn. But I do have the Graham Phatom and that is an excellnet match with the Lyra.

As for the Side by side that John mentioned I have the Helikon mono and Skala stereo. It would not be a correct thing for me to say since both are different and as well all know the grooves in the MOMO LP are much thicker that the Stereo and so the Stylus is mad differently.

for a wonderful moment there I had a great image of an angry stylus.

Funny I did too; cool unintended concept there Njaferi!

Since the mono groove is a bit thicker than the stereo one, they make the stylus a according to the grooves as well.

Here is the Difference:

The cantilever for the Helikon Mono is a solid boron rod, and the stylus profile is a line contact, which is unusual for a mono cartridge. However the stylus profile (3 x 70 micrometers, as opposed to 3 x 30 micrometers for the stereo Helikon) has been chosen to provide optimal playback results on monaural records rather than stereo LPs.