I had a Hana SL that was starting to do that as well. It had 300 hours on it. I replaced it with a new Benz Micro Wood Cartridge, and it did the same with about 400 hours on it. Both were less than 2 years old. All on a VPI arm that was set up properly. I’ve been spinning vinyl for over 50 years, and know how to set up things, and never had such issues before. I got the dealer to send me a new Benz which I promptly sold.
You likely don’t want to hear this but that was the last straw for me. I am now happily in the digital camp.... streaming Tidal into a high quality tubed DAC and I don’t regret it at all. Goodbye to all the fussiness of turntable set up, tonearms/cartridge matching issues, phono preamp loadings, record cleaning, stylus cleaning, noisy pressing, etc. etc.
Some people just love the ritual of that. Not me. Digital, when done right, is just as satisfying to me as analog was, but it took a lot of trial and error to optimize my digital source to get there.
Now I can just relax and enjoy the music.
You likely don’t want to hear this but that was the last straw for me. I am now happily in the digital camp.... streaming Tidal into a high quality tubed DAC and I don’t regret it at all. Goodbye to all the fussiness of turntable set up, tonearms/cartridge matching issues, phono preamp loadings, record cleaning, stylus cleaning, noisy pressing, etc. etc.
Some people just love the ritual of that. Not me. Digital, when done right, is just as satisfying to me as analog was, but it took a lot of trial and error to optimize my digital source to get there.
Now I can just relax and enjoy the music.