LYRA TITAN MONO MC PHONO CARTRIDGE

The Lyra Titan Mono is a low-impedance moving coil cartridge that has been designed specifically to play monaural LP records in ultimate fidelity. It is attempt to create the very best of its kind, and in one magazine article it has already been titled “King of Mono”.

Much great music is available only as monaural recordings, and these outstanding performances are clearly deserving of top-quality playback. Also, many of the cutting lathes used to master monaural LPs were capable of a wider frequency response and a greater dynamic range than stereo lathes. In many ways, therefore, monaural LPs benefit more from quality reproduction techniques than stereo LPs do.

Lyra TITAN MONO MC PHONO CARTRIDGE

The Titan Mono shares many of the advanced structural elements as the stereo Titan, including the one-piece machined titanium body, the full-enclosure removable stylus guard, the non-conductive front carrier, and the polepiece-less, direct flux dual-disc magnet system. However, the Titan Mono has a completely unique cantilever/coil/stylus assembly, and the electrical system has been designed and optimized for mono playback.

On mono records, the vertical axis of the groove contains no musical information, but it will frequently have noise, in the form of groove damage and dirt. The Titan Mono has therefore been designed to be completely insensitive to the vertical axis, which works wonders for the signal/noise ratio without causing any problems. The Mono's coil former is a square permeable plate which is oriented parallel to the record surface (rather than the 45-degree angle used for most stereo cartridges), while the coils are wound so that they only generate a signal when there is horizontal movement of the stylus and cantilever when tracking a record.

The Titan Mono has been designed with two totally separate monaural coils, since most monaural cartridges are in fact used with stereo amplifiers and stereo speakers. The separate coils also help avoid possible ground loops and hum problems that could otherwise be caused if a single coil (as with most other monaural cartridges) is fed into a stereo two-channel amplification system, thereby tying the two channels together electrically.

If the output from one of the Titan Mono's signal coils is connected to the Left channel input of your phono preamp while the other coil is connected to the Right channel input, each channel of your stereo system will be fed an identical monaural signal, and each of your two speakers will therefore produce an equal mono signal.

If your preamp does not have a balance control or separate attenuators for each channel, the Titan Mono's coil arrangement will automatically result in a single mono "image" located centrally between your speakers. If your stereo preamp incorporates a balance control or separate attenuators for each channel, turn down either channel and you will be able to hear the mono signal from the other speaker. And for pure monaural playback with a single amplifier and a single speaker, only one of the two channels (one pair of the cartridge's output pins) needs to be connected to the preamp's phono input.

Feel free to experiment and use the connection method that provides the best sonic results in your system.

TECHNICAL DATA

The cantilever for the Titan Mono is a diamond coated solid boron rod, and the stylus profile is a line contact, which is unusual for a mono cartridge. The stylus profile of 3 x 70 micrometers has been chosen to provide optimal playback results on monaural records as well as stereo LPs. (Although it is entirely possible to play a stereo LP with the Titan Mono, it will of course only be reproduced in mono.)

The free length of the Titan Mono’s suspension wire is ultra-short. This creates a precisely defined reference pivot for the cantilever, and plays an important role in improving the conversion accuracy of mechanical vibrations into electrical signals. The compound damper system utilizes completely new damper materials that provide superior tracking, detail retrieval and minimal ringing.

The cantilever assembly of the Titan Mono has been mounted directly to the titanium body. Intermediate mounting methods such as polepieces or subcarriers have been completely eliminated. Both the cantilever and the insides of the body have been shaped so that when the two components are joined to each other, a double-knife-edge system will be created, which will concentrate as much pressure as possible on the joint area and thereby achieving a type of cold weld. This direct mounting system minimizes the number of mechanical joints between the cantilever and tonearm, and maximizes mechanical energy transfer away from the stylus and generator area. The end result is far less reflected mechanical energy, and therefore significantly reduced levels of distortion and resonance.

The output impedance of the Titan Mono is 3 ohms, and the output voltage is 0.25 mV (5.0 cm/sec. RMS horizontal movement measured at 1kHz).

DPS 3 Main difference between the dps 2 and dps 3 is in the upgraded motor/power supply. To answer the question, yes it is worth the extra outlay in funds. If you havn't heard it then you could happily go through life secure in the knowledge that you have an excellent turntable, in fact one of the very best. However hear the difference the dps 3 makes and you just have to have it, much closer to the master tape than it has any right to be at anything near this price.

Lyra Helikon Mono it is hard to overstate the difference that the Helikon made on these records. The good ones became superb. But the three that sounded bad took on life, richness, image, detail—whatever descriptors you want to use for really enjoyable recorded music.
Stereophile Awards - 2005 Analog Source Component

Enstein The Turntable Choice S/E To be candid with you, this phono stage is a bit of a bargain. I know that we are still talking about a serious chunk of pocket change here but so often in the hifi world products are hyped and touted as the next best thing. It happens all of the time so when a genuine product comes along which re-defines a category at its price point it dosn't always create a tsunami of reviews.

Triplanar Precision Tone arm MKVII Why do triplanar only produce one tone arm? Simply because it is the best tone arm that they can produce and is widely acknowledged to be one of the finest tone arms in the world. Good accurate engineering costs money and takes time which is reflected in the very reasonable cost for such an item.

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Lyra TITAN MONO MC PHONO CARTRIDGE