Hana Cartridges / Excel

SAEC in Japan, Argent in USA in the past and Etsuro nowadays just to name a few. Read in my thread about it.  

Excel also made MM and MC carts under their name Excel Sound in the 70's 

Ch;

Thank  you you for the insight.

Argent, no kidding , my roommate played an argent on an AR turntable in school.  

Ch: 

I see your, posts a lot on cartridges 
What TT, Phono, cartridges are you using today?

thanks

jeff

I see your, posts a lot on cartridges
What TT, Phono, cartridges are you using today?

Hello Jeff, i’m using two Luxman PD-444, right now with Fidelity-Research FR-64fx with N-60 stabilizer (FR-7fz cartridge), Victor UA-7082 (Victor MC-L10 Direct Couple cartridge), Technics EPA-100 with Grace LEVEL II LC-OFC with original Sapphire cantilever, and Lustre GST-801 with Miyabi MCA. I have many cartridges in rotation (MM/MI/MF/LOMC/HOMC)

Denon DP-80 in original plinth will be connected soon, got many different tonearms to experiment with.

Only one modern arm (Reed 3p "12), the rest are all vintage, all cartridges are from the 80’s.

Phono stages are:

*Gold Note PH-10 MM/MC with power supply PSU-10
*WLM Phonata reference MC/MM
*JLTi MC/MM

various SUTs and headamps here (when i need them)

P.S. No tube gear at the moment

The hana el is no slouch either, probably the best sounding low cost moving coil on the market. It really has a way with bass, and has an open sound. Compared to my blue point no 2, it makes it sound a bit closed in. The sl will deal with sibilance a little better than the el, being a line contact. I load my hana between 400 and 500 ohms (loading plugs) with my musical fidelity lx lps. It also sounds terrific with the pro-ject tube box ds2. 

 Ch:

Never heard of the Turntable’s 
They are DD ?    Look nice 

Are you MM cartridge guy vs MC ?

One of these days I’ll hear a Decca 
and see what all the fuss is about 

I’m, almost,  ready to take the plunge back into vinyl 

working on deciding what Phono Preamp 

jeff

@frozentundra 

 Ch:

Never heard of the Turntable’s
They are DD ?    Look nice

Are you MM cartridge guy vs MC ?

All my turntables are Direct Drive, if you're not familiar with LUX you can read here about it. Also about Denon DP-80 here. I've been using Technics SP-10 mkII before. 

I have all types of cartridges, i am looking for the best in each type. Practically i like MM, while people are wasting time with retippers i can swap all king of different cantilevers/styli on my Grace LEVEL II for example as the company made Ruby, Sapphire, Beryllium, Boron styli for this particular model and they are interchangeable in 1 minute. The Grace LEVEL II LC-OFC has fantastic MM generator. 

On LOMC category i've come to FR, IKEDA, Miyabi, Dynavector, Klipsch top models. 

All these cartridges are very rare and hard to find in NOS or Mint condition. 

Vintage MM are reasonable priced, taking in count a super easy stylus replacement and oustanding sound quality of the best models. 

P.S. I hope someone else can continue with Excel Sound OEM work, it's interesting to see what else did they made for other companies in the 70s/80s. The Agrent i have is interesting vintage cartridge by Excel Sound. It has the same sapphire base, just like their new multi thousand dollars Etsuro Gold top model and Urushi. Аnother Argent 500HS has exactly the same Sapphire cantilever as the new Etsuro Urushi. All made by Excel Sound. The story of Argent is in my thread. 

I was told by a dealer that they also make the Sumiko carts.

The pioneer plx 1000 direct drive turntable received a nice recommendation via stereophile...only $699. I own all belt drives, may give the pioneer a shot. My last dd table was a denon dp 37f, which was very nice...sold it on Ebay in mint condition, wish I kept it.