RE: Met the man

John,
I sometimes agree with your attitude towards the prices asked for some high end gear. When it comes to Lyra cartridges I have a respect for that brand that makes me want to join the list of owners...if my kids ever stop spending everything I make.

Whatever Jonathan is doing with his designs it seems to be working. Many Lyra cartridges are some of the best LOMC cartridges available and his recent models are some of the best he has ever designed.

If I ever find myself with the available cash I would not hesitate to buy a Lyra or Transfiguration cartridge (or a few VdH models). You could argue they are overpriced but these are specialty makers of low production quantity products. They are targeted at a very small market and, as such, will be priced accordingly.

I have been a long time fan of the Denon DL-103D and have been lucky enough to enjoy the output of that cartridge. I know you have used a variety of cartridges and settled on the DL-S1 as a very good bargain for a high quality transducer.

I doubt you can find a better bang for the buck than Denon cartridges but Denon is a very large manufacturer of audio/video products with their analog stuff a very small part of their product line. I doubt that Denon will ever be a big factor in the current analog resurgence due to the fact its such a small market. In short its just not worth a big companies time.

The production of the cartridges they currently market is a big plus for those of us who value their sound. The DL-S1 is a very very good cartridge but a company the size of Lyra, Dynavector or Transfiguration have a very different financial reality and a comparable product has to be more expensive to make it to the market.

A Lyra will have to sell their products to a different market to be able to stay in business. Are their cartridges worth that much more than the comparable Denon models? The answer to that one depends on a lot of variables.

The Corvette is a nice car and quite a performer but is not a Ferrari or Lambo. The Corvette sells for 50-80,000 which is a lot of money but a comparable product from Ferrari or Lamborghini will cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In spite of all efforts made by the aforementioned manufacturers you either settle for a Corvette or dig a lot deeper for a car that may not be 3-4x as good. But thats what it costs for an alternative to the Corvette. If thats the type of product you want.

At the far end of the performance spectrum improvements cost a hell of a lot of money. The Ferraris of the high end analog audio world make some damm fine products and Lyra is a damm fine product. A Lyra will never cost what a Denon does but it may be argued that it is a better cartridge.

The Lyras of the world are the companies that blaze the creative path and create new models that break performance barriers. The Denons of the world have also created some good stuff but their creativity is a different thing. They rely on the efforts of some fine employees to make a difference. A company like Lyra is founded by former employees of places like Denon.

You can expect great products for reasonable money from Denon but you can expect the best of the breed from companies like Lyra. Its up to us whether we want to pay for that difference. Personally I respect the work done by Jonathan and hope he continues to create more great transducers. They will be expensive but they will be fine performers...for sure.

Ed

We don't shush around here!
Life is analog...digital is just samples thereof

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