A Few Words From The Designer... |
| The Beta is a completely different design from the original Lydian, but should cost around the same. As a fully nude design, the Beta has absolutely nothing surrounding the generator coils to cause spurious resonances or generate eddy currents. It also has a better magnetic circuit, about twice the output voltage, and replaces the old machined aluminum upper body with a combination stylus guard / body. |
| At a more conceptual level, the development goal was to bring "reference-quality sound" to the $1000 price point [(apologies for a US reference rather than UK, but it's convenient)]. Since the parts budget is limited for a $1000 cartridge, we needed to analyze carefully what mattered and what didn't. |
| As seen from the cartridge designer's perspective, the most interesting part of the entire design is actually the stylus guard - a transparent plastic piece that easily slides on and off the cartridge base, yet protects the entire cartridge when it is not being played. We analyzed how users are likely to destroy their cartridges, and we came to the conclusion that while it is important to offer full cantilever protection when the cartridge is not being used, having a body on while playing offers a false sense of security that is more than offset by the difficulty in seeing the physical relationship between the cantilever and the record (or any other potential obstruction). The Lydian Beta's combination of a nude cartridge design with a transparent stylus guard ensures that you can see the cantilever clearly at all times, making it easier to avoid banging it. |
| The combination body / stylus guard offer other benefits as well. It reduces the total mass, enabling the tonearm counterweight to be brought closer to the pivot, ensures that the cartridge can only be used in its top-performance denuded configuration (unlike the previous Lydian where we gave the user the choice between keeping the body on or taking it off), and replaces both a separate stylus guard and a complex machined metal part with a single molded plastic piece, which is much cheaper. Those cost savings left us with a bigger budget for the parts that actually contribute more to the sonics - the magnetic circuit, the cantilever assembly and the cartridge base structure. Compared to the previous Lydian, the Beta has a more linear magnetic system with a stronger magnet and longer machined polepieces, more windings on the coils (to raise the ouput voltage for better compatibility with tube and budget phono equalizers), and a one-piece machined base structure that uses a higher-strength grade of aluminum. |
| So I think the Beta is a real win-win situation. Through careful analysis and design, we have been able to use more sophisticated features and raise the performance level, without compromising on the build quality, yet without increasing our manufacturing costs. In the end, the consumer gets a much better cartridge for around the same price as the old model, which doesn't seem to occur too frequently in this era of seemingly limitless cartridge price inflation. |
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jonathan carr Scan-Tech (Japan) http://www.lyraaudio.com/ |