Hana EH High Output Moving Coil Cartridge - Review
If a moving coil cartridge is high on your shopping list, you have a limited budget and want the best value for money, then take a serious look at the Hana range of cartridges. In particular, the HANA EH (Elliptical High output) model, which is a high performance, high-output Moving Coil with synthetic Elliptical diamond stylus, and retails for £384.
Hana phono cartridges use high rigidity aluminium cantilevers and cross-shaped armatures
I purchased one from Audio-philia and had Carlo mount it on my Linn Basik / Akito tonearm turntable, tracking at 2 grams, the tracking force recommended for all Hana models. My experience with moving coils is that they can be unforgiving with poor matching of tonearms. However, all fears were removed when listening to Sade's 'Smooth Operator' on my set-up.
HANA EH Cartridge - High Output MC, Elliptical Stylus
What impressed me was the way the Hana extracted all of the subtle nuances from the grooves and Sade's voice had a velvet quality with no sense of harshness. The dynamic range was equally impressive.
Not to rave on too much, but what I also really love about this cartridge is the absence of surface noise from the record when playing at normal listening levels, which I believe is due to the high output of this model.
I'm looking forward to rediscovering my vinyl collection using this impressive cartridge.
Thanks go to friend of Audio-philia, Gordon Brown*, for this review.
*Not that Gordon Brown. :-)