Some time ago I purchased a Kongsheng Lyra Gold. I've really enjoyed it, and play it often. Recently, I took it apart to clean it, and afterwards I tested it. I found that at the upper register, there was a lot of air leakage. Right away I decided it was my fault! I had done something wrong, but didn't know what I had done. Well, after a few tries, I've found the issue. It's easy to make this mistake, so I thought I'd point it our to hopefully save others some trouble.
The Lyra (silver or gold) has a 3-piece mouthpiece/slide. Instead of a traditional bumper, the Lyra has a small silicone ring that fits into the slot in the slide itself. This small ring was my issue. If you look at the photo below, you'll see where the ring fits. In my case, I had the slide sitting on the ring. I guess because the ring is very thin and made of silicone, I didn't have any issue with pretty good slide movement. I couldn't tell the difference! Anyway, when I took it apart this morning, I made certain that the slide was flat on the bottom part of the 3-piece unit, and that the ring was actually sitting inside the slot of the slide. (There's a ring on the other end, too, but as far as I can tell it's just a spacer as it makes no contact with the end of the slide.)
Just be careful that the ring is fitted as shown in the photo below. When I did that, the harp magically returned to its normal "air tight" state! Duh!
