Special ingredients are said to provide the potentially substantial sonic delights of cartridge specialist HANA’s new Umami Blue high-end Moving Coil cartridge.
Designed by Japanese ‘Master’ cartridge maker Maseo Okada-san and entirely hand-crafted in Japan, the mix of technologies, construction and design expertise promise the Umami Blue MC cartridge to be something quite special.
As first developed for the renowned HANA Umami Red, the new Umami Blue features HANA’s proprietary ‘Auricle’ body design finished in a special MTP paint process giving it a very attractive aesthetic. The design is inspired, and indeed mimics, the shape of the human ear and is CNC machined from Duralumin (A7075 aluminium), an alloy used in the aerospace industry for its high weight to strength ratio (extremely strong, yet very lightweight). A ‘POM’ insert on the Umami Blue’s front is said to provide damping characteristics while being an aesthetic homage to HANA’s ML cartridge. The Umami Blue is a model above the ML and sits below its sibling, the Umami Red.
In an attempt to ‘mimic’ the cutting head stylus used for Mastering, the Umami Blue’s ‘nude’ natural diamond ‘Microline’ stylus is carefully cut and polished, with the design strategy also providing superbly accurate groove tracking for ultimate detail retrieval. The stylus is held in a super-hard Boron cantilever.
The moving coil magnet system is based on Alnico material for greater linearity and reduced magnetic saturation. The permalloy cross-armature features hand-wound pure copper wiring while the design also incorporates a pure iron pole piece. Said pole piece is put through a ‘cold annealing’, or cryogenic, process at “near-absolute zero temperature” and the process is said to be applied on the yokes and 24K gold plated lead/terminal pins.
The coil impedance is said to be 8 ohms while the Umami Blue’s output is specified as 0.4 mV. Load impedance is given as 80 ohms while frequency response is quoted as spanning from 15 Hz to 50 kHz. Tracking weight is 2 grams while the cartridge itself weighs in at 10.8 grams.
The new HANA Umami Blue Moving Coil cartridge is imported into Australia by Audio Magic and is represented around the country through associated specials audio dealers.
HANA Umami Blue Moving Coil Cartridge
Price: AU$4250
Australian Distributor: Audio Magic
+61 3 9489 51 22
www.audiomagic.com.au
