Gramophone Dreams

In a video on his YouTube channel Jazz Vinyl Audiophile (footnote 1), Stereophile contributing editor Ken Micallef asks Jeffrey Catalano of High Water Sound how he manages to be so consistent—how his rooms wrangle "top 2% sound" at every audio show. The first words out of Jeffrey's mouth are "I know how to listen."

"It's one of my greatest strengths. I know what music sounds like. I just go inside the music and let it tell me how it's supposed to be alive, how it's supposed to live in that space. I know that sounds simplistic and maybe somewhat esoteric, or pretentious even—but it's not.

"I have to sit in that hotel room 10 hours per day for five days, and I need the experience to be good for me—good enough that I can sit there and close my eyes and just enjoy ... some of the 400 records I bring to every show."

Yes, that does sound "simplistic" and "pretentious" and dare I say prideful, because it is. But I believe Jeffrey Catalano has earned the right to make statements like that. I've listened to records and live music with Jeffrey since 1975, and that is how he listens. He has trained his mind to lock on to whatever music's going down in front of him.

Jeffrey and I share a belief that listening to music, live or recorded, is a learned skill, like reading. The more we practice listening, the more we will comprehend. The more we comprehend, the more delights we will discover.

As a listener, I'm more laissez-faire. I like sitting back with my hands behind my head, smiling, grokking how sounds sound. I like watching voices and rhythms that occupy my room. I like seeing the outlined forms of performers. I identify as an audiophile because I like watching well-tuned sound systems put on a good show, like cars at a drag strip.

Hana Umami Blue
On a good day, with the right disc, when the needle drops, those first sounds entering my chambre grip my attention and put it right close to what the performers are doing—ie, that place Jeffrey Catalano has trained his mind to go to. That amount of listener-to-performer intimacy took only seconds to establish when I placed the Umami Blue's stylus into the shiny old grooves of Ruggiero Ricci performing Paganini: Caprices, Op.1 Nos.13–24 (London ffrr, red label/gold lettering, LP LL.252). Hana's second-from-the-top moving coil cartridge—$2500; footnote 2—put just the right bite on Ruggiero's bowing, making its scraped tones into a goosebumpy spectacle. The Blue showed me the muscle in Ricci's right arm and the steadiness of his left shoulder. It exposed these nearly intangible nuances suggesting Ricci's sturdy physicality, and the wildness in his mind.

The caprices on LL.252 were recorded in London in 1947 and released in 1950. Together with LL.264, which features Nos.1–12, this is the first complete recording of Paganini's 24 Caprices in their original version. Once you experience the energy captured on this thick (220gm!) made-in-England disc, you'll wish for that level of tone, texture, and touchable presence from every record in your collection.

In five seconds, the dazzling harmonics of Ruggiero's violin had my full attention. In two minutes, it was clear the stereo Umami Blue was digging out more of that rich, old-mono sound than I was expecting from a contemporary stereo cartridge. After a week, I was ready to propose marriage.

I'm jabbering about Ricci via the Blue Umami moving coil because it, my never-disappoints Dynavector XX-2 MkII (replaced by the XX-2A; $2150 for as long as you can find it), and the entheogenic Benz Micro Gullwing SLR ($3000) I reviewed in Gramophone Dreams #76 are the cartridges that, of the ones I've tried, represent my current taste in "middle-shelf " ($1k–$5k) contenders. Also, because these cartridges give me a majority portion of top-shelf (above $5k) excitements, which means I'd have to think pretty hard and feel pretty flush before spending more.

The $2500 Umami Blue that I'm reviewing here sits just below Hana's flagship model, the $3950 Umami Red, which I praised in Gramophone Dreams #47. The Blue presents recordings using a MicroLine stylus on a boron cantilever, a combination I've developed some fondness for. It generates 0.4mV from 8 ohm coils and an alnico magnet. Its body is made from A7075 duralumin and weighs 10.8gm.

To date, I've reported on Hana's EL, ML, SL, and SL Mono cartridges, plus the Umami Red. That's a lot of Hana products. Some readers might accuse me of having fallen under the influence of Excel Sound's master cartridge creator Masao Okada, who's been designing and manufacturing high-performance moving coils (for the OEM market) in Yokohama, Japan, since 1970. Also, I admit to being charmed by the well-mannered Hiroshi Ishihara (currently of Hana-Youtek Ltd. of Japan), who, around 2015, commissioned from Okada-san a new line of moderately priced moving coil cartridges called Hana by Excel.

It's more likely though that I've fallen under the spell of Hana's personable importer, Garth Leerer of Musical Surroundings, who's always a fun hang, with a killer smile, great stories, and a love of falafel at the Bedouin Tent (footnote 3).

So yes, I am predisposed to liking products from Hana—but so what? If I claim a Hana cartridge sounds a certain way and users' auditions suggest otherwise, then my credibility and your trust will be diminished. Who gains from that?

Hana SL MK II ($850)
With less than 20 sides on its clock, Hana's new "MK II" version of its SL model played "Moonchild" from King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King (Atlantic LP SD 19155), and for the first time in my life I felt like I was catching on to King Crimson, or at least, having fun misunderstanding it.

I repeat-played this track marveling and staring into its vintage multitracked stereoscape. "Moonchild" had me watching sounds appear and disappear—like distant flashes in a night sky. Hana's SL MK II got tones right, kept the reverb wonderous, and the Magick turned on.

With the MK II, "Moonchild" played darker and subjectively "slower" than it did with Hana's Umami Blue, but praise be to vinyl, the MK II put this track through with super-spatial capital-B Beauty.

As I mentioned above, I enjoyed the breezy wide-openness of the Umami Blue; I only wished I knew which physical elements—which cartridge parts—make the Blue sound that way. So for fun, I asked Garth Leerer why he thought I liked the Blue more than the Red and he nailed it: "Herb, you're an alnico magnet kind of guy."

Hana's SL MK II features an alnico magnet and a Permalloy armature/coil former. I can't see that small, but my experience with 80% nickel transformers suggests that adding nickel to iron intensifies its response to magnetic fields, thereby increasing its responsiveness to small-signal stimulations (footnote 4). In audio systems (and guitar pickups), alnico makes tones appear denser and more saturated tone-color–wise. More noticeably, it adds vitality and polish. And it's this type of "vitality and polish" that I experienced playing King Crimson's "Moonchild" with Hana's SL MK II. Compared to the original SL, the new SL upped the levels of vividness and immediacy.

I emailed Garth asking how the $850 SL MK II differs from the standard SL.

The first thing he said was "We just reduced the price of the original SL to $600, as it will stay in production for only the next 6 months." Then he answered my question.

"The new Hana SL MK II uses the same generator as both the Umami Blue and ML. The lower impedance 8 ohm coil improves signal-to-noise and allows loading to 80–100 ohms, especially important for all of the phono stages that default at 100 ohms input loading. All key generator parts are cryo'd like the ML and the Umami Blue and Red.

"The body shape is now the same as the ML and includes a black-painted brass top piece with threaded holes, as with the ML. The added mass of the SL MK II makes it compatible with a wider range of tonearms, it is easier to mount, and it couples better to the headshell. The body is coated with an elastomeric paint for resonance control, similar to the Umami Blue." Plus, "The cantilever is now a tapered aluminum design; the MK II is the first Hana to use this part."

According to Garth, "Okada-san thinks the new tapered-aluminum cantilever is the biggest deal about the new SL MK II. He is an engineer, so a new part with overall lower tip mass is what makes him most excited. The tapered pipe is much tougher and less prone to deforming when mishandled, meaning it translates groove modulations better under normal use."

This added-mass, new-design cantilever and upward shuffling of ingredients sounds like a swag bag of top-shelf bits for only $100 more than its predecessor. The swap to an 8 ohm coil and a tapered aluminum cantilever is significant performance-wise, but overall, the SL MK II sustains the temper of the original's nude Shibata stylus.

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Footnote 1: See youtube.com/watch?v=Pdq_xUwtJrs.

Footnote 2: Hana/Excel Sound Corp., 3-7-37, Shin-Yoshida-Higashi, Kohoku-ku Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan 2 23-0058. Web: hanacartridges.com. US distributor: Musical Surroundings, Inc., 5662 Shattuck Ave., Oakland, CA 94609. Tel: (510) 547-5006. Web: musicalsurroundings.com.

Footnote 3: See bedouintentny.com.

Footnote 4: See fralinpickups.com/2017/05/19/all-about-alnico.