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Hana Umami Red or Lyra Kleos?

I’ve found out about two or three cartridges in my price range of $3000 -$4000 that should work well within the limitations of my Luxman 505uX Mk II’s built in phono stage. The other cartridge is the Soundsmith "The Voice" MI cartridge. Next I’ve had to figure out which are also compatible with my VPI Classic 2’s JMW 10.5i tonearm (with or without the VPI two pivot mod).

I’ve been informed off my short list, the Hana Umani Red and the Lyra Kleos both appear to have the right specs to be appropriate candidates for use with the VPI JMW 10.5i, However the Soundsmith "The Voice" would have weight and/or compliance issues.

Have any of you advice as to which of either the Hana Umami Red or Lyra Kleos MC cartridges you might prefer? I’m pretty sure these are both excellent choices, but may have some differences you might be able to point out, I’m a bit disappointed the Soundsmith "The Voice" might not match up well with the VPI JMW 10.5i tonearm, but so it goes. Thanks for any advice and sharing your experience with either of these cartridges.

Mike

skyscraper

Showing 2 responses by mijostyn

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 

@mr_m , when you use qualifiers such as "way" you automatically disqualify your opinion. No audiophile cartridge is "way" better than another unless one is defective. 

@skyscraper, that is what I said. The Kleos is a better performer than the Umami. It tracks better and has less distortion. Much less distortion. Johnathan Carr may just be the best cartridge designer currently alive. In my eyes...excuse me, to my ears there is no better cartridge than a Lyra. Only My Sonic and Ortofon come close. I think if you ask @rauliruegas he will back up that opinion. Who knows, maybe not! However, his opinion is the only one I would have confidence in when it comes to cartridges, tonearms and phono stages. 

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 

Mike, what Raul is trying to tell you is that no cartridge is going to perform at it's best in a unipivot arm. The results are less predictable and will always be substandard. In general more compliant cartridges will perform better in unipivot arms but the limiting factor is the mass of the arm.

You would do yourself a service by switching to VPI's gimbal arm. It is not perfect but it is far better than any unipivot. 

As an aside, any Lyra cartridge is superior to any Hana cartridge. Putting these two cartridges in the same sentence is a huge insult to Lyra. Hana cartidges have become popular because they are cheap. That is what they are, cheap cartridges. There are many high output cartridges for even less money that significantly outperform any Hana cartridge. If you want a less expensive MC cartridge get an Audio Technica. 

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