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ARO + 2M

James

James

Lord of the Erg\o/s
I've been running Lyra MCs on my LP12/Aro since forever, but I'm in a mood to simplify a few things in my hifi. One of this is to reduce my box count. My preferred amplification system is a vintage Pioneer C21/M22 combo, which has an in-built, high quality and fully adjustable MM phono stage. It works great with a 2M Bronze mounted on a similarly vintage PL-71.

There is no doubt the LP12/Aro is better than the PL-71, and I believe in the Linn hierarchy of TT > tonearm > cartridge. With that principle in mind, the 2M would be even better on the LP12 than it is on the PL-71.

So, has anyone tried a 2M on an ARO? The Lyra Kleos has a 9.5mm mouting bolt-to-stylus distance and I estimate an almost identical measure on the 2M from its technical drawings. The only reason it may not work is incompatible mass/compliance. It'll be good to know of others' experiences before I make the change.
 
I'd have thought it would be fine, the m2 is slightly heavy by MM standards but not by MC standards. The aro is a high end arm designed to take an MC. Since you have them you should just try it.
 
I used Aro with a Linn Adikt MM cartridge on LP12 for quite a while. It was a very happy combination that was hardly bettered by its successor, Klyde/Prefix/Hi-Cap. If you want to simplify, there's your chance!

Regards,

Klyde
 
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if my experience is anything to go by. The 2M Bronze is not quite as refined as a good MC cart but everywhere else it delivers the goods wonderfully. Guessing here, but the Black might narrow the gap to the point where buying expensive MC carts becomes very difficult to justify.

Mr Tibbs
 
Mr Tibbs said:
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if my experience is anything to go by. The 2M Bronze is not quite as refined as a good MC cart but everywhere else it delivers the goods wonderfully. Guessing here, but the Black might narrow the gap to the point where buying expensive MC carts becomes very difficult to justify.

Mr Tibbs
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All the m2 carts are very good but the black is indeed special, I love mine.
 
Mr Tibbs said:
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if my experience is anything to go by. The 2M Bronze is not quite as refined as a good MC cart but everywhere else it delivers the goods wonderfully. Guessing here, but the Black might narrow the gap to the point where buying expensive MC carts becomes very difficult to justify.
Click to expand...
I intend to get the Black stylus when the Bronze has done its dash. I understand they are interchangeable. As it stands, the Bronze is barely run in. I'll have an upgrade to look forward to in time.

With each successive and increasingly expensive MC cartridge I've bought over the years, I find that I'm playing fewer records. On the surface, this seems rather odd because I prefer music from vinyl than CD. But I spend 95% of my listening time playing CDs rather than vinyl. And I have more records than CD.

Subconsciously, I think it's because I want to minimise wear and risk of damage to an expensive MC cart. The ARO is wobbly, the earth moves unpredictably and I have a phobia of trashing an expensive cart. If I changed to a cheap and easily replaced MM, it'll at least test whether that explanation holds or whether I'm just getting lazy.

I hope I don't sleep in too much this weekend to give that a go.
 
I think you need a better phono stage, James. Get a really good one, and you won't be thinking of downgrading your MC.
 
Blzebub said:
I think you need a better phono stage, James. Get a really good one, and you won't be thinking of downgrading your MC.
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I'd look at it the other way round, a top flight phono stage can really bring the best out of a medium price MC, or something like a 2M black.
 
The 2M Bronze is now singing its little heart out on the LP12/ARO. It works brilliantly for a cartridge that costs about 1/7th of the moving coil it replaced, but gives 6/7ths of the latter's performance. I'm stoked.

Loaded with 100pF and 50kohm on the preamp (plus a bit more pF from the interconnects), the Bronze sounds wonderfully fulsome, engaging and incisive. OK, it doesn't have the last word in atmospherics or deftness of touch of the Lyra, but the sins of omission are worth the musical ease and peace of the mind and pocket.

I don't really miss the Lyra Kleos yet, and only time will tell as I play both familiar and new (to me) vinyl.
 
James said:
The 2M Bronze is now singing its little heart out on the LP12/ARO. It works brilliantly for a cartridge that costs about 1/7th of the moving coil it replaced, but gives 6/7ths of the latter's performance. I'm stoked.

Loaded with 100pF and 50kohm on the preamp (plus a bit more pF from the interconnects), the Bronze sounds wonderfully fulsome, engaging and incisive. OK, it doesn't have the last word in atmospherics or deftness of touch of the Lyra, but the sins of omission are worth the musical ease and peace of the mind and pocket.

I don't really miss the Lyra Kleos yet, and only time will tell as I play both familiar and new (to me) vinyl.
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Excellent news James, and doesn't surprise me a bit given the results I'm getting with the bronze in my LP12/RB1000. I'm listening to more records than CD these days and that is not what I expected to happen before I installed the Bronze.There is a bit more to be wrung out of it if you can be bothered to fine tune the loading a little more with some (very) minor surgery to the preamp.

Mr Tibbs
 
Will the Bronze match capacitance in use with say P3 - rb300/Fono ? ie. no settings

Guess the RB300 need a spacer then (Sorry James, no Aro here unfortunately:))
 
Mr Tibbs said:
There is a bit more to be wrung out of it if you can be bothered to fine tune the loading a little more with some (very) minor surgery to the preamp.
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Could you please remind me what capacitance and impedance loading you're using, Mr Tibbs?
 
No Aro or Naim here but I'm using 39k / 39pf on the phono stage with about 120-140pf or so in the arm lead with my Black. Sounds great to my ears, no bright peak (which certainly happens with too high capacitance), a solid and powerful sound with very low surface noise yet plenty of detail and punch. Very happy with it and I'll just be buying a stylus when it wears out.
 
My ARO's output leads are unmodified except for Eichmann bullets at the end instead of BNCs. Does anyone know what capacitance they have?

On my preamp, I have the choices of 100/150/300/400/500pF and 100/10k/25k/50k/100k-ohms.
 
You are probably where you want to be, but I'd try the 25k setting just for the hell of it. I'd expect increasing the capacitance to make it sound obviously worse (resulting in a peak around 8khz or so).
 
Tony L said:
You are probably where you want to be...
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It sounds mighty fine with 100pK/50k. It may be better with 75pF and 40k (with minor surgery on preamp), but I'm guessing that will be marginal at best. My Bronze is relatively low mileage*, so I should let it run in more fully before I tweak things further.

* probably only played 20 slabs of vinyl so far.
 
James said:
Could you please remind me what capacitance and impedance loading you're using, Mr Tibbs?
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39K/22pF plus whatever extra capacitance is inherent in the RB1000 leads (probably 100-130pF or so) so almost the same as Tony is using. I experimented quite a bit before settling on these values and it really did make a big difference from the standard Naim values of 47K/220pF (plus arm lead capacitance on top).

Changing your cap loading would require some work at PCB level (changing two small capacitors) but you could tune your resistive loading more easily by simply soldering a 180K resistor across each phono input (either in the plug or in the socket - whichever is easier to access). This would change the resistive load from 50K to 39K.

Mr Tibbs
 
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