Головка звукоснимателя Lyra Etna Lambda SL

As a retail model at a significantly lower price than the Atlas, but with similar performance aspirations, the Etna has been designed with a strong focus on engineering efficiency to ensure that its performance is as high as possible over the sum of its parts. For this reason, although it shares some design philosophy with Atlas, the concepts are executed somewhat differently.

The Etna uses a solid titanium core construction machined with non-parallel surfaces to suppress internal reflections where possible, but unlike the Atlas (and the Titan i before it), it is paired with a slightly reduced, asymmetrical duralumin outer casing that is designed to hold core like a very tight-fitting puzzle. The core and body are completed with bronze and stainless steel resonant control rods, then everything is pressurized into a pre-stressed, void-free, strong construction of multiple materials and complex internal shapes. The nature of this limited layer construction greatly reduces the resonant signature of each material and creates a much more neutral-sounding cabinet structure than otherwise possible, while the cabinet's high rigidity favors transients, dynamics and resolution.

Line converters such as loudspeakers and phono cartridges are inherently inefficient devices - on the order of 5-10%. In other words, of the vibrational energy that enters the cartridge from the LP groove, only 5-10% will be converted into an electrical signal. The cartridge's internal damping system will dissipate some of the remaining 90-95%, but most of the excess vibrational energy will be reflected inside the cartridge, creating internal echo, smearing, and overall loss of fidelity. This is easy to demonstrate with many cartridges - play a heavily modulated record with the power amp off and put your ear close to the cartridge. The "needle talk" you hear is excess vibrational energy that is not properly controlled.

To help channel this excess vibrational energy into the headshell, where it can be safely dissipated within the greater mass of the tonearm and turntable base, Lyra has traditionally mounted the cantilever directly into the cartridge body, resulting in a rigid, seamless connection between the cantilever assembly and the headshell. (it so happens that we remain the only manufacturer that has done this).

During the Atlas design process, we discovered that in addition to connecting the cantilever to the head housing with a rigid, unbroken path, further sound amplification could be achieved by removing all objects and voids from the path. The asymmetrical shape of the Atlas was conceived in part for this purpose, to move the front magnet holder, mounting screw, and screw hole away from the mechanical path that connects the console to the head case.

Etna uses the same asymmetrical concept, but while Atlas moves the screw and screw hub to the same side, Etna moves the screw/screw hub to the front of the cartridge - and puts an additional bronze damping barrier between the screw/screw hole and the mechanical path connecting the console with head.

Features of the LYRA Etna Lambda cartridge:

Name: LYRA Etna Lambda
Manufacturer: LYRA (Japan)
Device Type: Cartridge
Cartridge type: MC
Color: Black-gold
Weight, kg 9.2 gr.
Main characteristics:
Frequency range, Hz-kHz 10 - 50
Output voltage: 0.56mV
Channel separation, dB 35
Downforce Range: 1.65 - 1.78 gr.
Downforce recommended 1.72 gr.
Dynamic compliance: 12 x 10 cm/dyne
Internal impedance: 4.2 ohms
Recommended load impedance: 104 - 887 ohms
Vertical angle: 20 deg.
Needle Shape: 3nm x 70nm profile
Cantilever Material: Hard bur with diamond coating
Internal wiring: Copper 2-layer 6N high-purity copper