Hana SLM MONO Moving Coil Cartridge - Shibata Diamond

My initial impressions are great. The sound of the violins achieves the perfect balance of being both bright and lively, yet smooth, which is a tricky thing to get right. I leave the cartridge playing for a couple of hours … and then listen to the same piece again. There is a big improvement and the bass in now asserting itself….. To check out how the Hana SL handles female vocals, I play Barbra Streisand’s ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers’. The song is brilliantly conveyed in the opening section and as the song progresses there’s no trace of brashness to her voice. The Hana SL gives a really sophisticated performance, which is very involving and refined.

Both [SH and SL] are superb cartridges and are strong challengers to rival big-name brands at the price.

The Hana SL Low-Output MC Cartridge … Or – “Punching above its weight…”

…. in the review period I also compared the Hana to the Dynavector 20×2 and D17, and the Music Maker ‘Classic’ – all considerably more expensive. In all cases these more expensive cartridges shone brighter in certain areas, but overall, it was the Hana that I preferred. The Hana on the other hand makes you forget the nature of the reproduction chain – its handling of the most tricky elements of vinyl recordings – sibilants, lack of surface noise and end-of-side wear inevitably help here, but it’s more than that.

On some recordings I found myself preferring it to all other cartridges regardless of price, and given that the Hana is right at the bottom of the Moving Coil pile price-wise this is nothing short of astonishing.

I really liked these [SL, SH] cartridges as they were fuss free and just got on with their job of producing great music. The low output for me was better but this doesn’t mean the high output was poor or wouldn’t be preferred by some listeners. If you only have a moving magnet input on your amp or pre-amp. then the high output version is a no brainer.

Full marks to Hana, who obviously know what they are doing, for putting their name to a range of excellent value for money cartridges for the less ‘well to do’ vinyl fanatic.

Both cartridges work well in both budget and higher-end turntable/ arm combinations and are well worth seeking out.

For long term listenability with the widest varieties of music and especially with recordings that vary from truly shitty and bright to the best in your collection, the Hana SL would be a great choice.

It also may be the one to get if your system is sounding a bit edgy, bright and harsh with your current cartridge and you want to mellow it out a bit without losing detail resolution (in fact depending upon what you’re now using the Shibata stylus might give you more resolution and a somewhat mellower sound).

Mike Trei and I stayed up late playing single after single, switching from the Hana SL Mono ($750) to my wired-for-mono Shure SC35C to a Denon DL-102 Mono (discontinued). I was curious to hear how effectively the Hana’s nude Shibata stylus would play the little seven-inchers compared to these reliably musical-sounding budget cartridges with spherical-tipped styli. I also wondered if the spherical styli would play these 1960s records more authentically—more as I remembered them.

Or would the Hana SL dig up so much new information that I would listen in awe at previously unheard aural pleasures long buried in these ancient 45rpm grooves?

The answer came quickly, and it wasn’t even close: The Hana SL Mono excavated a lot more information and did so very quietly. Records such as Desmond Dekker & the Aces’ “Israelites” (Ember 55129) or Little Eva’s “The Locomotion” (Dimension 1000) made me feel I’d been granted some sort of honored privilege—an unprecedented ability to hear everything that had never before been exposed by my spherical-tipped cartridges. Single after single, the Hana SL Mono made sound that was decidedly present, punchy, finely detailed, and liquid.

…. all things being equal, the Hana is the perfect candidate for anyone with a mid to upper mid-level turntable and arm combination who is on the hunt for a value-for-money moving coil cartridge. 

With a performance close enough to challenge cartridges priced to $1500, the Hana SL punches well above its weight division and represents good value for money, and as such comes warmly recommended.”