LYRA ATLAS

Première cellule phono à bobines mobiles de structure asymétrique

Le haut de gamme de LYRA.

Les technologies LYRA :

C’est la première fois qu’une cellule phono est dotée d’une structure asymétrique. Cette structure permet de contourner les barrières au « grand son » présentes dans les cellules phono actuelles.

Résonances et vibrations réduites

• La structure de forme différente sur les côtés gauche et droit réduit les résonances du corps de la cellule (neutralité) et les dimensions de l’équipage mobile, diminuant du même coup l’influence des vibrations parasites à la lecture (silence de lecture).
• La réduction de ces vibrations est également obtenue grâce à l’efficacité du montage du cantilever directement dans le corps de la cellule (exclusivité LYRA), qui permet d’assembler de façon totalement rigide celui-ci et la coquille porte-cellule.  L’utilisation d’une zone de montage étroite concourt au bon couplage de l’ATLAS avec la coquille, facilitant le transfert d’énergie vibrationnelle vers le bras (transparence, rapidité).

Capacités de lecture optimisées

• Alors que l’ATLAS conserve le système de double aimant, le cantilever bore plaqué diamant et le stylet à rayon variable « line-contact » de la Titan, l’équipage mobile est complètement nouveau.
• Les bobines ne sont plus disposées classiquement en carré mais en X : chaque canal opère avec une plus grande indépendance par rapport à l’autre. On obtient ainsi une meilleure capacité de lecture du sillon, un niveau de sortie pratiquement identique sur chaque canal, une séparation améliorée et une plus faible distorsion due à la diaphonie.

Rendement élevé

• Dans le même temps, LYRA a pu augmenter la performance et l’efficacité des bobines génératrices. L’ATLAS a une tension de sortie supérieure de 12 % par rapport à  la Titan, tout en réduisant la quantité de fil dans les bobines de 22 %.
• La réduction de la masse améliore les capacités de lecture, tandis que l’augmentation du niveau de sortie et l’amélioration des caractéristiques électriques permettent d’obtenir de meilleurs résultats des entrées phono.

Construction originale et performante

• Bien sûr, l’ATLAS utilise la technologie « Vinyle sous un autre angle » de LYRA, qui prédisposent mécaniquement les bobines de signal afin de les orienter naturellement pendant la lecture pour retrouver un alignement parfait avec le circuit magnétique. Les compliances égalisées dans le plan vertical et le plan horizontal assurent à l’équipage mobile de l’ATLAS une liberté identique dans toutes les directions pour une performance optimale en stéréo.
• Comme sur la Titan et l’Olympos, l’ATLAS utilise un corps méticuleusement usiné dans une billette solide de titane.  La plupart des surfaces du corps de l’ATLAS sont non parallèles, évitant aussi les dimensions multiples d’autres dimensions pour inhiber toute résonnance, en combinaison avec un processus de fabrication spécialement mis au point.

Pour LYRA, l’ATLAS Lambda représente une étape importante dans la lecture des LP.

« La Lyra ATLAS extrait tout simplement plus d’informations et les assemble mieux que toutes les cellules que j’ai entendues jusqu’à présent ».  Dennis DavisThe AudioBeat (7/02/ 2013)

« Lyra a fait un travail remarquable en équilibrant la transparence avec la pureté, la palpabilité avec la précision, afin de créer une expérience d’écoute qui soit rarement moins que fascinante ».       
Jacob Heilbrunn The Absolute Sound (24/08/ 2018)

LYRA ATLAS Lambda “New Angle”, “Asymmetric”, “Monolithic Titanium”

Introducing the ATLAS, the world’s first asymmetric MC phono cartridge. The Atlas is Lyra’s flagship model. It is also the first time that anyone has made an asymmetrically structured phono cartridge. Why asymmetric? Because, by literally misplacing the barriers to great sound that are present in every other cartridge today, it confers a number of important performance benefits. Linear transducers such as loudspeakers and phono cartridges are inherently inefficient devices – somewhere between 5 and 10%. In other words, of the vibrational energy that enters a cartridge from the LP groove, only 5 to 10% will be converted into electrical signal. Some of the remaining 90 to 95% will be dissipated by the cartridge’s internal damping system, but much of the excess vibrational energy will reflect inside the cartridge, creating internal echoes, smearing, and a general diminishing of fidelity. It is easy to demonstrate this with many cartridges – play a highly modulated LP with the power amp turned off, and bring your ear close to the cartridge. The “needle-talk” that you hear is excess vibrational energy which isn’t being controlled properly. To help conduct this excess vibrational energy into the headshell, where it can be safely dissipated within the greater mass of the tonearm and turntable plinth, Lyra has traditionally mounted the cantilever directly into the cartridge body, resulting in a rigid, seamless connection between the cantilever assembly and tonearm headshell (we remain the only manufacturer to do so). When Atlas was being designed, however, we realized that it is not only important to link the cantilever to headshell with a rigid, unbroken path, but that further sonic gains could be obtained if all objects and voids were removed from the path. Atlas’ asymmetric shape was conceived partly with this goal in mind, so that the screw and screw hole securing the front magnet carrier could be moved out of the way of the mechanical path connecting cantilever to headshell. Freed of any obstructions or voids, the rigid, direct path established between cantilever and headshell is highly effective at draining away vibrations once they have been converted into electrical signals, suppressing induced resonances and internal reflections that would otherwise manifest as sonic colorations and overhang. A narrowed mounting area couples Etna more tightly to the headshell and facilitates the transfer of vibrational energy into the tonearm, giving even better control over spurious resonances. Also, Atlas’ differently-shaped structures on the left and right sides suppress the formation of standing waves inside the cartridge body, thereby creating a less resonant, more neutral cartridge body than would be otherwise possible. Atlas employs a yokeless dual magnet system, diamond-coated boron rod cantilever and Lyra designed variable-radius line-contact stylus (major radius 70 micrometers, minor radius 3 micrometers, block dimensions 0.08 x 0.12 x 0.5mm, mounted within a slot machined into the front of the cantilever), and builds the cantilever assembly directly into the titanium body structure. The cantilever and the insides of the body are both shaped so that joining the two components to each other creates a double-knife-edge mounting system, which focuses as much pressure as possible on the joint area and effectively cold-welds the parts together. More rigid than the cantilever mounting system employed in Titan, this design facilitates the transfer of mechanical energy away from the stylus and signal coil area, which minimizes reflected mechanical energy and thereby significantly reduces distortion and resonances. Atlas’ signal coil system is a completely new high-efficiency X-shaped design. Compared to traditional square coil formers the X-shape allows each channel to operate with greater autonomy from one another, giving better tracking, tighter channel matching, improved separation, and lower crosstalk-induced distortion. Although there are and have been other X-coil cartridges, their performance benefits have been partly negated by poor efficiency in converting mechanical work into electrical output. This has either required high internal impedance (the larger coils add considerable moving mass and increase noise), and/or resulted in low output voltage (which stresses the phono stage). To overcome this weakness, Lyra conducted a careful investigation of X-core coils, using a combination of mathematical analysis and hands-on experimentation. The outcome of the analysis program was a very specific X-core shape that not only had higher efficiency than any previous X-core cartridge, but also surpassed the efficiency of our earlier square-coil cartridge designs. Rather than using all of the extra efficiency to single-mindedly increase the output voltage, we chose to distribute the benefits – allocating part of the extra efficiency to increase the output voltage (12% higher than Titan i), and using the remainder of the extra efficiency to reduce the amount of wire in the coils (22% less than Titan i). The lowered mass further improves tracking performance, while the higher output and lower internal impedance allow phono stages to perform better. The Atlas uses Lyra’s “New Angle” technology, which mechanically pre-biases the signal coils so that they are perfectly aligned to the front and rear magnets when LP playback takes place. This equalizes out discrepancies in vertical and horizontal compliances, and enables Atlas’ coils to move with equal ease in all directions for wider dynamics, higher resolution, and improved tracking. As with the Titan and Olympos, the Atlas uses a monolithic body that is meticulously carved from a solid billet of titanium, through a lengthy process that involves both contact (for the exterior) and non-contact machining (for the interior body structures). But by making most of the Atlas’ body surfaces non-parallel, avoiding dimensions that are multiples of other dimensions, and adding a pre-stressed phase-interference resonance-controlling system, resonances have been inhibited further. We firmly believe that the Atlas represents an important step forward in LP playback.

Specifications LYRA ATLAS Lambda
Designer: Jonathan Carr
Builder: Yoshinori Mishima
Type: Medium weight, medium compliance, low-impedance moving coil cartridge
Stylus: LYRA-designed long-footprint variable-radius line-contact nude diamond (3um x 70um), slot-mounted
Cantilever system: Diamond-coated solid boron rod with short one-point wire suspension, directly mounted into cartridge body via high-pressure knife-edge system
Coils: 2-layer deep, 6N high-purity copper, cross-shaped chemically-purified high-purity iron former, 4.2ohm self-impedance, 11uH inductance
Output voltage: 0.56mV@5cm/sec., zero to peak, 45 degrees (CBS test record, other test records may alter results)
Frequency range: 10Hz ~ 50kHz
Channel separation: 35dB or better at 1kHz
Compliance: Approx. 12 x 10-6cm/dyne at 100Hz
Vertical tracking angle: 20 degrees
Cartridge body: One-piece machining from solid titanium billet, with reduced-surface higher-pressure headshell contact area, predominately non-parallel and asymmetrical shaping, phase-interference resonance-controlling mechanism, and body threaded directly for mounting screws
Cartridge mounting screws: 2.6mm 0.45 pitch JIS standard
Distance from mounting holes to stylus tip: 9.5mm
Cartridge weight (without stylus cover): 11.6g
Recommended tracking force: 1.65 ~ 1.75g (1.72g recommended)
Recommended load directly into MC phono input: 104ohm ~ 887ohm (determine by listening, or follow detailed guidelines in user manual)
Recommended load via step-up transformer: 5 ~ 15ohm (step-up transformer’s output must be connected to 10kohm ~ 47kohm MM-level RIAA input, preferably via short, low-capacitance cable)
Recommended tonearms: High-quality pivoted or linear (tangential) tonearms with rigid bearing(s), adjustable anti-skating force, preferably VTA adjustment