RENAUD *RIBET*- san at Delta Audio / HANA French distributor has sent us this excellent review by Vincent Cousin-san in “DIAPASON ” magazine, for your continuous reference andpromotion.

Followings is its English translation.

"At the pinnacle of Hana cartridges range from Japanese manufacturer Excel Sound, is the Umami Red, which is described as ‘a signature dish of a Michelin three-star restaurant’. Signed, like the Red, by the master cartridge designer Masao Okada-san, comes the Umami Blue, for which we don't know how many stars should be awarded. Let's take a closer look. The body of the cartridge, named Auricle - pavillon d'oreille in French- , is acoustically sculpted in a way that is both relevant and luxurious. Its constituent material is duralminium, cut from a solid bloc using CNC digital machines. A blue resin is applied to make the enclosure anti-resonant, a role also assigned to the front insert in POM (an inert polymer). The generator is borrowed from its little sister, Hana ML. Based on ALNiCo magnets, it houses a boron cantilever, ultra-pure copper coils with an internal impedance of 8 ohms and a Micro Line Nude diamond - same shape of the engraving tool used for master tapes. This is followed by a cryogenisation step that improves conductivity and longevity. The bandwidth extends from 10 Hz to 50 kHz.

Listening is transcendental, sensational: on a high-resolution system, you can hear all the dynamics, the spectral range, the resolution, all the work that goes into the artists' mixes and recordings, good or bad, unfiltered and unvarnished, just like the real thing. Masao Okada is a great Master."