Hana Umami Black

@dwette what table did you move to? I've been considering moving up to an Innovation from my Ovation. I've purchased a Kuzma 4 Point 9 and can't decide if I should mount it or move up tables. 

@j-wall 

 

what table did you move to? I've been considering moving up to an Innovation from my Ovation. I've purchased a Kuzma 4 Point 9 and can't decide if I should mount it or move up tables. 

At first I upgraded from an Ovation I had for 12 years or so, to an Innovation Wood with two 12" Universal tonearms (2023). This summer I upgraded that to a Master Innovation and also got a third tonearm (Tracer).

I've had an Umami Red for the past 5 or 6 months and it's awesome, and I bet that black is as well; I'd love to hear it in the same system, replacing the red.

I don't diss things I haven't heard because they're too expensive for my budget. 

If I was going to spend that kind of money on a cartridge, I would buy one of the more exotic well known brands.  If you don’t like it, resale would be much better. 

If resale value is a primary concern, there are some exotic brands with very poor resale versus MSRP, because of competition with gray market goods, and also "wink, wink" deals. A 20K cart with foreign distributer and then dealer who each tack on a huge cut (for simply routing along an 8 oz box) leaves a LOT of margin room. And in general, a used 10K - 20K list cart is simply going to have to advertise a very, very substantial discount to move on the used market (especially this one). It gets worse as you move up in price. 

With Blue and Red, Hana seems to have controlled their distribution quite well - and resale seems very strong, at least based on what I’ve seen. 

I believe the AirTight PC-7 (sadly discontinued) was an Excel (Hana maker) build - and damn it sounds great! Need to get my ears on the Umamis some day. My Koetsu Blue Lace with this very diamond cantilever is spectacular. The Black could be special!