A true mono version of the Lyra Kleos, built to order for people who take their mono records seriously.
A mono groove carries all of its music side to side; the vertical axis holds nothing but noise from wear, damage and dirt. The Kleos Mono is built to ignore it. Instead of the 45° coil former used in stereo cartridges, its square iron former sits parallel to the record surface, and its coils are wound to produce signal only from horizontal stylus movement. Lyra uses two separate, isolated coils, so the cartridge can feed a normal stereo system without tying the two channels together electrically, which avoids ground-loop and hum problems. The rest is pure Kleos: a one-piece 7075 aluminum body, a solid boron cantilever and Lyra's variable-radius line-contact stylus, hand-built in Japan with final assembly and testing by Yoshinori Mishima.
Because it rejects vertical groove noise, Lyra says the Kleos Mono gives a much better signal-to-noise ratio on mono records, with no downside. Its two coils can run in parallel into a stereo system, or one channel can be used alone with a single amplifier and speaker. For more output in a one-amp mono setup, the coils can be wired in series through a short headshell lead. At 0.25 mV it needs a high-gain, low-noise MC phono stage or a step-up transformer designed for low-impedance cartridges, and a rigid tonearm of medium to medium-high mass. Reviewers have praised the stereo Kleos for its smooth, detailed and tonally balanced sound.
| Type | Mono low-output moving coil (MC), medium compliance; built to order |
| Output | 0.25 mV (5 cm/s) |
| Internal impedance | 5.4 Ω; 9.0 µH inductance |
| Coils | Two isolated mono 6N copper coils on a square high-purity iron former, parallel to the record surface |
| Recommended load | 95–816 Ω direct into MC input (finalize by listening); via step-up transformer: one designed for 1–3 Ω cartridges, into a 10–47 kΩ MM input |
| Tracking force | 1.65–1.75 g (1.72 g recommended) |
| Compliance | Approx. 12 × 10⁻⁶ cm/dyne at 100 Hz |
| Weight | 8.8 g |
| Stylus | Lyra long-footprint variable-radius line contact, nude diamond (3 × 70 µm), slot-mounted |
| Cantilever | Solid boron rod, short one-point wire suspension |
| Frequency range | 10 Hz – 50 kHz |
| Body | One-piece machined 7075 aluminum, threaded mounting holes (2.6 mm) |
| Recommended tonearm | Medium to medium-high mass |
| Also available | Kleos (stereo, 0.5 mV) and Kleos SL (stereo, 0.25 mV) |
Pearl Audio is an authorized Lyra dealer. Call or visit our Portland showroom to talk about matching a cartridge to your tonearm and phono stage.
