First - Nothing against either of the MM carts you and Lew have recommended - hopefully Christian at SOTA sells them and sets up for the customer vs. the Hana which he recommended AFTER it sounds like a detailed conversation about tastes, upgrade path , etc… I’ve probably sold, setup and optimized 100 or so SOTA tables / Arms / Cartridge over the years…. in your quasi accurate assessment of cartridge design / execution / test and quality control you left out the VERY important alignment of the diamond on the cantilever into your “ commodity “ motor. Hana changed the pricing premium applied to the mystical MC by pricing it for volume. Oh and they sound excellent…i’ve owned them ( on SOTA, Denon, Basis, and Brinkmann TT …
Best to the OP