Troika anyone?

Wow. I don’t own any of those records!:astonished:

I did not notice a gross mistracking on both Akiva or Kandid but then when I started playing classical orchestral music, that’s where Lyra + EKOS SE showed the combo was better at tracing complex music.

P.S. I’ve been playing pop and jazz on Troika so far no troubles. No heavy stuff yet.

BJ FTW?!:dizzy_face:

:small_blue_diamond:This desire,exhortation,.is directed to everyone on this forum with English as their native language.
Can you stop using abbreviations,.it is difficult for us others,who speak other languages to understand what these abbreviations mean. Thanks

/Peder🙂

Non-Kandid Lyra you mean? I didn’t get a chance to test it for tracking in particular.

As for the issues I had, it was less to do with complexity and more with pure volume - hot recordings trip them.

It’s not just you, I’ve no idea what that one means. I just treat them as noise if I don’t work them out.
By the way, I don’t speak emoji either.

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That’s alarming! I’ve never heard of such a thing. A top of the line Linn cartridge ruins the record?

Any mistracking cartridge damages a record - some have higher limits than others.

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Sure, but a Linn! I’m appalled.

They were never famous for tracking ability - in honesty, many famous cartridges are also not great in this regard

I am not sure about this either. I have had no problems with my Kandid.

Stu

I had 2 Akivas and 2 Kandids, so perhaps I was just very unlucky. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ve also noticed that people have higher tolerances to this than I do, so YMMV.

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I have a second lyra delos, first on my past SMEV arm and now on rega rb808. I had never had a mistrack, never.

I think it’s quite simple, really: I listed examples of records that my previous setups struggled with. If you have none on that list (or with a problem), that is great.

If you have some on that list and you have no issue with your Akiva or Kandid playing them correctly, that is great for you: these things are made by hand and clearly vary - my first Kandid I actually returned because it tracked particularly poorly, whereas the second only struggled with these records.

Perhaps the non-Linn badged Lyras perform differently? I didn’t have house time with them to test for that.

mea culpa:
if you are referring to kuma’s BJ FTW – to be honest with you, it really is not worth getting into this any further as this would just pollute this thread. With apologies to kuma for this side track…

much better to be talking about cartridges and vinyl and all those beautiful things…

enjoy/ken

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Hmm… also probably it depends on which release, too. But I think ARO in general is very forgiving from my experience. Like I said the only time a Kandid showed lesser performance compared to Lyra Etna SL was at a complex classical orchestra music at tutti. or I thought that Kandid was uneasy to play choral music. ( like Mozart Requiem )

So, one mistracking ruins a record? Unipivot arm, in general, was easy on record I thought.

Did a replacement Kandid track better?
I agree. My Kleos SL had to be returned. It was not a tracking issue but it had no bass! A replacement cartridge was muuuuch better. Lyra, in general is a good tracker.

Anyways, if you had a trouble with both Akiva and Kandid, for sure Troika isn’t gonna make it.

Dunno Ken.
I find it equally amusing. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

With these records the struggle was real on both the Aro and the SE, but it was clearly less uneasy on the SE. It did track better in the Linn arm, noticeably so.

Not always, sorry I wasn’t clear: it was this one particular record where there would be mistracking in some spots that would get “printed” to the vinyl, which was originally played on an Aro with Akiva. For a bit more detail, at some point I set up a second turntable just to investigate this tracking situation: I fitted an OC9ML/II to a Planar 6 (as I knew that combo shouldn’t have difficulty tracking) and went to Barnes & Noble and bought 3 copies of the Follow the Lights EP I mentioned as my previous one was mistracked. Results were:

  • Play one brand new copy on the Kandid: mistracking. Move this over to the P6 and it sounds the same
  • Play one brand new copy on the OC9: no mistracking whatsoever. Move this over to the Kandid and it mistracks. Play it back on the OC9 and now the sound of the mistracking is there
    The 3rd copy became my “never touch a Linn cartridge” one. :stuck_out_tongue:
    All the other records on the list were not ruined by the Kandid or Akiva, they sound absolutely fine on the ART1000 despite mistracking on the previous cartridges.

Absolutely, but it still mistracked on the above records. Classical became listenable though, which it wasn’t before with the first one (I guess similar to your experience in a way).

so that I understand you correctly, all other records were fine without replacing even tho they were played on both Kandid and Akiva?

That’s right - they performed incompetently but not necessarily destructively.

That’s not my experience - I’ve run both Akiva (on Ekos and Ekos SE) and Kandid (on Ekos SE) and never had any issues with tracking on any record.

Nostalgias is not what it used to be… I used a Troika for many years on an Ittok and it provided a great “contemporary” Linn sound through an Olive 82 and 250 with 'briks. There was a lot to like about the euphonic sound of that era but also a lot of frustrations in terms of information extraction and tracking on difficult piano and operatic recordings. The Kandid is the “modern” Linn sound and whilst not as warm and cuddly it is, to my ears, more accurate and musical. All a matter of taste I suppose.

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