The Skala's narrow mounting plate is designed to constrain resonances while giving the cantilever assembly a more direct mechanical path to the tonearm. Because the Skala's polymer base compresses under pressure, care must be taken to tighten the screws slowly and evenly. The Skala matched the Helikon's speedy transient attack,finely detailed textures, three-dimensional spatial presentation, and tonal neutrality, but added a touch of warmth and smoothness, said MF.
"The Internet buzz about the Lyra Skala has some claiming it superior or at least equal to Lyra's top-of-the-line Titan i, which costs $4500." -Stereophile
Stereophile 2007 'Joint Analog Source Component' of the Year Award Winner! Stereophile Class A recommended component!
The Skala is the first of LYRA designer Jonathan Carr's 5th-generation cartridge designs. At first sight the Skala appears to be made entirely of plastic, one of our distributors has even described it as a “formless white plastic blob”! However, we don’t mind (not too much, anyway). The Skala is a thoroughbred design focused on delivering pure performance.
Close inspection of the Skala gradually reveals a central structure consisting of a vertical metal blade that carries the cantilever system, the magnets and the output pins, i.e. the entire functional core of the cartridge. The blade is clamped against the tonearm headshell by an outer white plastic base into which are drilled the mounting screw holes. Looking from the rear, you can see that the vertical blade passes right through the base and makes direct contact with the headshell. Since the cantilever system is also mounted directly to the blade, the cantilever has in effect a seamless connection path to the tonearm.
The metal blade of the Skala in effect functions without the resonant carapace of a traditional shell, in addition to being “nude” like the other Lyra designs.
The small contact “footprint” of the blade focuses the force imparted by the mounting screws, creating a high-pressure contact area which forms a more rigid bond between Skala and tonearm headshell than the larger mounting surface of a conventional cartridge could provide. The white plastic base forces the vertical metal blade of the Skala against the tonearm's headshell, and serves to constrain and damp resonances in the blade, and to reduce conductive material in the total body structure reducing eddy currents.
Although the plastic base is pretty much flush with the metal blade where contact is made with the headshell, the plastic will compress under pressure, while the blade will not. This allows a limited degree of azimuth adjustment to be made by the careful application of different amounts of torque to left and right mounting screws. Extreme care should be taken to tighten both mounting screws gradually and evenly, a little at a time. Over cranking one screw and then doing the same for the other could result in an unintentional change to the azimuth. The drilled holes in the plastic body are themselves lined with metal jackets to receive the mounting screws securely.
The magnetic system in the Skala is the same non-polepiece twin-disc direct-magnet system also used in most other LYRA models. However the body shape has been even more heavily carved away in the area of the magnet than any previous model– even more than on the Titan. This results in fewer eddy currents in a very sensitive area of the cartridge. New elements are a new non-conductive and non-magnetic front magnet carrier, a new cantilever system, a new output pin design, and a new output-pin carrier. The stylus guard is the same grooved slide-on type that has proven so successful on the other LYRA models.
Stereophile Comments on the Lyra Skala "Even Lyra critics agree that the line's strongest suit is timbral neutrality. If you're looking for warmth, romance, a golden glow, or a "fat" bottom, look elsewhere. Like ruthlessly revealing studio monitors, Lyra cartridges tend to give you all the news, good and bad, and in great detail. As you move up the line, the more the cartridges reveal about inner detail, harmonic structure, and space. When you get to the Titan i, you also get a well-controlled lushness, particularly in the lower octaves, that the less expensive Lyras lack. You also get unrivaled micro- and macrodynamic expression...The Internet buzz about the Lyra Skala has some claiming it superior or at least equal to Lyra's top-of-the-line Titan i, which costs $4500. A direct comparison demonstrated that that wasn't quite the case—the Titan i scaled greater dynamic heights, produced even greater textural suppleness, and revealed even more detail and spatial glory. However, it's easy to understand why some might say the Skala rivals the Titan i. In terms of tone and, especially, texture and harmonics, the Skala has more in common with the Titan i than with the Helikon—and it's better than the Helikon in every way, particularly in the midrange, where it fully fleshes out richness and color that the Helikon only suggests."
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