Argo

About the Argo

The Lyra Argo is a moving coil (MC) phono cartridge designed and manufactured by Lyra in Japan. It features a solid boron rod cantilever with a proprietary line-contact stylus (3 x 70 micrometers profile) made by Ogura, delivering a frequency response from 10 Hz to 50 kHz. The cartridge has a low internal impedance of 4 ohms and a low output voltage of 0.45 mV at 5 cm/sec. It weighs approximately 6.4 grams and requires a recommended tracking force of 1.7 to 1.8 grams. The Argo is praised for its sharpness, attack, and immediacy with a very open and lucid tonal balance, extended and natural treble, and excellent stereo separation. It minimizes surface noise and groove mush, making it effective even on older or less pristine LPs. The body is machined from a single piece of hard-anodized aluminum alloy for superior rigidity, and the cartridge uses a non-polepiece construction with symmetrical disc magnets for a clean magnetic field. It is considered an excellent entry-level high-end cartridge, offering timbral accuracy and musical detail that rivals more expensive models.