Lyra Helikon owners, help me out

I've been using a Lyra Helikon for the past year, but I'm thinking of giving up on it and moving back to a Benz (my pre-Helikon cartridge of choice). The Helikon's fast and incredibly detailed, but installed on my Linn Ekos arm, tracking is medicore at best. I have mistracking on maybe 20-25% of my LPs. Granted, when the Helikon sounds good, it sounds amazing, but when it mistracks as often as mine does, the bad begins to outweigh the good.

So here's my question: the press loves the Helikon. Some of you love the Helikon. I wanted to love the Helikon but could not. The thread on cartridge compliance got me thinking: is there something about the Helikon that fundamentally doesn't work with an arm like the Ekos? I assumed that the medium-high mass Ekos would love a low-medium compliance cartridge like the Helikon, but nothing I did helped it to track as well as a Benz does. I tried every set-up variation I could think of (though, admittedly, I'm self-taught on setting up an LP 12; my local Linn dealer gave up on analog years ago).

Are there other forum members using the Helikon on an Ekos (or an Ittok, which I suppose is pretty similar)? If so, how does it sound? Did you have to do anything special to get it to track well?

 

I'm kind of surprised it doesn't track too well - the Helikon's have a microridge/line stylus, right? While that's not always everything, it should be a huge start in the right direction, for good tracking at least. Of course I don't have a Helikon - listened to it once though, but that's about it. It was on an Immedia TT/arm.

Maybe there's something wrong with your cartridge or it was defective from the start? Have you tried contacting Jonathan Carr or someone else from Lyra about your problem? Jonathan may also know if this is a bad match or not.

 

Hey, Larry! The Helikon makes for one of the very finest matches for the Ekos.

I'd bet your problem is with anti-skating force. The anti-skating mechanism of the Ekos is slightly off in its factory callibration, so applying equal amounts of VTF and anti-skate won't yield optimum results. Not having an adequate amount of anti-skate will cause mistracking.

Grab a test record and add anti-skating force to see if that fixes your mistracking. With the Helikon, you probably need around 2.5g of antiskate, maybe a bit more.

As long as you're getting a nice vertical bounce (with no lateral component) out of your LP12, the set-up should be fine.

Something else that'll make a surprising improvement is to replace the counterweight on your Ekos with a new one from Linn. The rubber damping ring inside the counterweight dries out and hardens after only a few years (as in about 3 years!). This allows resonances to muck up your sound, so a fresh counterweight makes a surprising difference. It's $100 for a new counterweight, but the improvement goes way beyond the price. If you can move your current counterweight without much effort, it's time to swap it out. New ones take a fair amount of force to move.

 

I've tried a couple of Lyras on my Ekos, Lyra told me themselves that none of their carts are designed to go on Ekos, - I couldn't get the overhang right , and they agreed.

Tim

 

Thanks for the ideas, guys. Geez, I don't know what to think!

Martin, I didn't contact Jonathan Carr, but I did contact Lyra's distributor, Allen Perkins. He thought the problem was with the Linn's suspension: he admitted to me that he's no fan of suspended tables, and I got the impression he thought the Lyra probably wouldn't work its best on one. And it's true that the mistracking can be minimized (though not eradicated entirely) by compressing the Linn's springs (lowering the armboard and platter 2 mm lower than the plinth). Doing this goes against Linn orthodoxy though.

Arin, it's true that the mistracking I hear is mostly coming from the right channel, so increasing the anti-skate makes sense (in fact, I've had it set at nearly the maximum): this helps, but there's still mistracking on occasional LPs. And on the Hi Fi News and Report test LP, the Helikon won't even play the second bias track cleanly--that's hardly good tracking.

Tim, weird that Lyras don't seem optimal for Linn arms, since both the Arkiv and new Akiva are Scan-tech sourced!

I love analog, but it's times like these when I despair. The only high end dealer within 200 miles of me doesn't do much with vinyl anymore and they let go their Linn-trained tech guy years ago. I'm pretty much on my own. Auditioning cartridges isn't an option in Nebraska! And since cartridges aren't returnable, all I can do is read up on what's available and then take a chance. I'm afraid that the Helikon was a chance that turned out badly. Ordering cartridges seems like such a crapshoot. I'll probably go back to Benz: I've owned one before and it worked very well on my Ekos. I sure would love a cartridge that would combine the warmth of a Benz with the speed of the Helikon, though, one that I knew would work well on an Ekos.

Maybe I'll just go the Hoffman route and just stick a Shure on my Ekos. I'll have to get a new phono stage though: 60 dB of gain might be a tad too much for a Shure!

 

I agree with Arin.

You'll see the same problem with an Ittok. You'd think that setting the tracking force and anti-skating to the same value would be logical ... WRONG! I've set up a few MC cartridges and invariably the anti-skating will be set at a higher value - the best way to check is with a test LP, like the Hi Fi News - it's money very well spent.

For the price, Linn could do a better job with their calibration settings, that's for sure.

And yes, the Benz cartridges will go further in the torture tracks of a test LP than most MC's.

 

No Linn arm or cart will pass the HIFI news test record, it's made to show off "other cartridges" - we've set up 1000's of LP12's and we threw all the test records in the bin. The ear is a better tool.

What leads you to believe that the antiskate dial on Ekos or Ittoks is not accurate?
thanks

Tim

 

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"Tim, weird that Lyras don't seem optimal for Linn arms, since both the Arkiv and new Akiva are Scan-tech sourced!"

I was disappointed with this ,but it does avoid them competing with themselves, maybe Linn asked Scan-tech to do that on purpose ?!! -

Tim

 

There are quite a few folks over at the Asylum who use the Helikon/Ekos combination and really like it. It's a tight fit, but bending the headshell wires seems to have done the trick for everyone over there. Dunno, maybe Martin's right about a possible defect.

There are a lot of Benz users too, though. Interestingly, one would expect the high internal impedance of Benz cartridges to kill the PRaT of an LP12, but they work out anyway. FWIW, the Dynavector XX-2 seems to fall midway between the wood body Benz cartridges and the Helikon.

LP12 set-up is a DIY proposition for a lot of folks these days. Not necessarily such a bad thing, actually. Not all dealer service is created equal, Linn trained or not.

 

He's the one that oversaw the Immedia TT & arm/Helikon (and other equipment) when I heard it at the Stereophile show a couple of years ago. Even played one of my Sinatra records for me. Seemed like a good guy.

That's terrible - even my old Grado Sonata that I sold was able to do that, and I was not impressed with its tracking.

 

I used a Helicon for about 2 years. I had it on a JMW 10 arm and also had problems with mistracking. Plus I always felt that it lacked the lower bass response. I switched to a Clearaudio Victory H and gave up nothing but gained a better trackability and a better defined bass.

 

There is more to Carts than tracking, many carts track perfectly but are not that musical or rhythmic ,whereas the Linn Akiva or old Troika won't pass any test record but play music like anything
Tim


That's terrible - even my old Grado Sonata that I sold was able to do that, and I was not impressed with its tracking.[/QUOTE]

 

Tim, your customers don't know how lucky they are to have an experienced Linn dealer at their disposal. Here, the situation is less than satisfactory, as I have mentioned before, with the new Linn agent basically stuffing up big time.

What I'm referring to with the antiskate, is that it is simply not a matter of matching the dial to the tracking force setting. On the 6 or 7 MC cartridges I've set up on the 3 different Ittok arms I've owned (never owned an Ekos) the best sound and imaging has been obtained using a substantially higher bias setting - you'd assume they should match. Even the tracking downforce settings are as much as 15% out when measured with a stylus gauge. Why have the settings at all if they're not precise?

For the DIYer the HFN test record is a great help - it will put you in the ballpark a lot quicker. From there fine adjustments are determined by ear, as you say.

You mention that no Linn arm will pass the HFN test record, why is that?

BTW, are you familiar with the Aro on the LP12? How does it perform and what are the sonic differences to the Ekos?

 

I use an LP12 with Linn Ekos and Lyra Helikon SL. I absolutely love the combo. It tracks beautifully and I've never had a tracking problem. I agree that you cannot rely on the "rule of thumb" of setting the anti-skate to the same as the tracking force. I used a test record with a blank band to set anti-skate.

Also, I experimented heavily with different tracking forces to achieve optimal results. I found the best results with 2.0 grams and anti-skate setting of 2.5. 2.0 grams is higher than Lyra's maximum recommended force of 1.75 grams, so experiment at your own risk. However, I have used this setting for the last two years and have never had a problem, and the results have been astounding.

Another point to consider is cartridge loading. Maybe the distortion you hear is not tracking error at all and is actually an artifact of the cartridge load. I had a similar disatisfaction with the Lyra when I used it with the Linto phono stage. The two were not a good match. What phono stage are you using?

Finally, something worth considering is the cleaning of the stylus itself. Accumulated buildup of vinyl gunk on the stylus and/or cantilever could affect tracking (among other things). Ensure that you give the Helikon a thorough cleaning, making sure to comply with the manufacturer's guidelines.

 

Thanks, Vex. I remembered that you had bought a Helikon SL a while back and was hoping you'd respond.

So you use 2 gms of VTF. Wow! Allen Perkins cautioned me not to go above the recommended limit of 1.75. I did go to 1.8 and it tracked better, but given Allen's warning I was afraid to go any higher. And I was afraid to tell him I'd done so; I thought maybe Jonathon Carr would come by my house and work me over with a sack full of solid aluminum alloy! But 2 years and no suspension failure? Huh, maybe that's the secret....

As for loading, I've been using 100 ohms. My phono preamp is a Coph Nia.

I'm neurotic about cleaning my stylus--I use LP#9 after each side--so I don't think that's the issue. At times, I've wondered if the mistracking I hear is due to the Helikon's amazing detail, that maybe it's picking up dirt and deformed grooves in badly pressed records that other cartridges don't uncover. But the fact that the Helikon does so poorly on the HFNRR test disk made me think otherwise.

Now that I know the cartrdige won't burst into flame, I'll try the increasing the VTF.

 

Tom Evans built my phono amp knowing I had a Lyra Helikon SL. He set the loading to 1000 ohms. It sounds incredible. My Linto offered a load of 150 ohms and I did not care for the sound with the Helikon. You might want to experiment with different phono amps. 1000 ohm load seems to be the sweet spot for the Helikon.

I just checked out the specs on your Coph Nia. It offers variable loading between 22 and 47K ohms. Try setting it to 1000 ohms and see how it performs.