Well, I am mightly confused. The Lyra guys say >91 ohms. I can't tolerate listening to it at that loading in my setup. I have to load it down to 5-10 ohms using a SUT, and then it sounds very good. With a solid state phono-pre it doesn't seem to matter so much (100 ohms sound ok), but the solid state rig is not working at the same level as my SUT/tube rig. So it is kind of hard to tell anything from the comparison.
I am not yet convinced that the reason that my SUT/tube rig sounds bad at 100 ohms is that the SUT is overloading the tube MM input. At 16x and 100 ohms the input is about 9mV. But even during soft passages, the transients don't seem to sound right. There could be something wrong elsewhere in my system. However, I am tempted to send the Delos back for an inspection, just to be sure that it is performing correctly. I bought it used, so it will have to be at my expense.
I like the sound when loading between 5-10 ohms; but since this is radically different from what the manufacturer suggests, I have to assume that something is not right in my rig, or with the cartridge. (Or maybe the Delos is just hotter than I can tolerate... but no one else seems to have this experience, or maybe blah, blah, blah).
I find it interesting that Manitunc likes 10 ohms even with a SS preamp. But I am curious what settings others are using with SUTs and what the turns ratio is on the SUTs.
