+1 Hana ML. Mine is teamed with a Rega Aria. Smooth & Full with no noise even with my 50 year old records. Your issue gives me pause, as had planned to upgrade to Umami.
Warm sounding phono cartridge
Hello all. I recently upgraded the phono cartridge on my Marantz TT15S1 from the Clearaudio cartridge that came with the table to a Hana Umami Blue. I'm overall happy with the purchase. However, while the Hana has made my well cared for and well recorded LP's sound excellent many of my albums now sound thin to me and noisy. Clicks and pops have been exacerbated to the point that I do not want to play some records even after a run through my Degritter ultrasonic.
I'm looking for a phono cartridge MM, MC or MI in the $1,000 range or less that is warm sounding and less revealing than the Hana. Any thoughts?
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Thanks everyone for the input. I just want to clarify that I do really like sound of the Hana Umami Blue. I have the loading set at 80 ohms (coil impedance is 8 ohms). I tried it at 100 ohms, but it sounded bright. If I play my MOFI Eagles Hotel California 180g Supervinyl 2 LP set on the Hana the sound is literally incredible. The noise floor is silent, sound stage full and incredible. You can liter hear every detail from guitar pics and snare drums. Don Henley sounds like he's in my living room. Unfortunately, this cartridge also gives me everything on my Al Stewart Time Passages that was passed down from a relative. The album has been used since 1980. It has been played a lot, spent some time in a basement and handed down to me. On my prior cartridge the Clearaudio Virtuoso V1 I did not get the detail the Hana provides, but a mediocre copy of an album did not sound as bad. I figured my solution would be to get another table with a "nice" but less revealing cartridge to play my "well loved" albums. |
I agree with chipcalzone, this is very clearly a setup issue. If azimuth is off, you will definitely hear more noise from the record than if azimuth is set right, or more right than you have it. And in my experience, thinness in the sound, to the extent that it's related to your front end, is caused by having the arm a little too high. Check your arm height again, with the stylus sitting in a record groove, and make sure the arm is exactly parallel to the record surface. If your tonearm has an adjustment for azimuth, try adjusting that better. Keep in mind that the best sound may not come from a stylus that's perfectly vertical to the record surface. Tolerances in cartridge manufacturing are larger than we might expect and in many cases cartridges are sold that exceed the manufacturers own tolerance standards. IOW, you likey have not yet heard what your cartridge actually sounds like, so don't go shopping for a new one until you get to hear the one you already have. |
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