Hana Introduces the new Umami Blue Moving Coil Cartridge
from Excel Sound's master cartridge designer Mateo Okada-san
Musical Surroundings today announced the new $2500 Hana-Umami Blue cartridge. From the press release: "The new cartridge follows in the Hana “Brilliant and Gorgeous” tradition of providing the listener with sublime enjoyment. Embodying the true sense of synergy, the HANA-Umami Blue combines the essential ingredients of the HANA-Umami Red with the ALNICO based generator of the HANA ML."
The new cartridge incorporates the Auricle™ body design, unique and exclusive to the Umami series and is CNC machined from Duraluminum, and utilizes a special Melamine Thermosetting Process (MTP), enameling, giving the body a brilliant blue glossy finish. It shares other key Umami Red components including a precision-cut Microline diamond stylus, Boron cantilever, and high-purity copper wire wound on a cross-coil core.
The Umami Blue combines those parts with the ALNICO magnet-based generator used in the Hana ML. Coil impedance is 8 ohms, output is .4mV.