Hana Umami Blue Moving Coil Cartridge
The HANA-Umami Blue high-end moving coil cartridge combines the vision of Master cartridge designer Okada-san with the history of unique materials, classic Japanese techniques, and modern audio engineering. The Auricle™ body design, unique and exclusive to our Umami series, is CNC machined from Duralumin. Sharing key Umami Red ingredients, including the precision-cut diamond stylus, Boron cantilever, and high-purity copper wires, then combining these with the Alnico magnet-based generator found in the famous Hana ML, creates the exceptionally musical Umami Blue.
Reviews
HiFi+ Award winner
“The Hana Umami Blue brings that high end cartridge ‘wow’ factor at a stunning, attainable price. It looks great and it sounds great. If it were any more Umami, you’d probably want to eat it!” — Alan Sircom, hifi+ Magazine (2023 Awards Issue)
Absolute Sound rave review
"The Umami Blue is the least expensive cartridge I’ve heard that does most of the things that the big high-end cartridges do. Maybe not to the same degree, but it’s on that same wavelength. And what I mean by that is the Umami Blue manages to put together a balance of the beloved analog qualities that those of us who are into vinyl really revere. Not to get too technical, I’m going to call that analog “yumminess”. There’s a certain naturalness to how analog can come through, you know it when you hear it, and that is well preserved by the Umami Blue.
That analog beauty was part A of what I really liked about the Umami Blue, but the magic comes in combining that with a high resolution, deep look into the music. That combination is, frankly, the reason people tend to spend money on fancy cartridges. Combining those two things at a $2,500 price point is, I think, an important achievement. And that is about the highest praise that I can give a cartridge"
read the review in Absolute Sound
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Specifications
- Stylus Microline
- Cantilever Boron
- Magnetic Circuitry Pure Iron/Cryo Treatment
- Coil Wire High Purity Copper
- Output Level 0.4 mv
- Output Balance 0.5/1kHz
- Trackability 70 µm/2g
- Channel Separation 30dB/1kHz
- Frequency Response 15-50,000Hz
- Coil Impedance 8Ω/1kHz
- Suggested Load Impedance > 80Ω
- Magnet Alnico
- Vertical Tracking Force 2g
- Cartridge Weight 10.8g
- Body Material Duralumin (A7075)
- Body Finish Melamine Thermosetting Process (MTP)
- Warranty 2 years