Lyra Etna Lambda Mono

The Lyra Etna Lambda Mono is a special mono version of the Etna Lambda for optimal playback of monaural/monophonic (mono) microgroove vinyl records.

On mono records, the vertical axis of the groove contains no musical information, but it will frequently have noise, in the form of groove damage and dirt. The Etna Mono has therefore been designed to be completely insensitive to the vertical axis, which greatly improves the signal/noise ratio without any downside on monaural records. The coil former is a square permeable plate oriented parallel to the record surface rather than the 45-degree angle used for most stereo cartridges, while the coils are wound so that they only generate a signal when there is horizontal movement of the stylus and cantilever when tracking a record.

Two totally separate monaural coils are used in the Etna Lambda Mono, since most monaural cartridges are used with stereo amplifiers and stereo speakers. The separate coils also help avoid possible ground loops and hum problems that could otherwise be caused if a single coil is fed into a stereo two-channel amplification system, thereby tying the two channels together electrically.

All Lyra cartridges are designed by Jonathan Carr in collaboration with Yoshinori Mishima, and manufactured by Lyra in Japan. Yoshinori personally does final build and fine-tunes every Etna Lambda.

Mono rules.