An acquiantance of mine recently got in touch to order a replacement cartridge for one he had just broken. He had been installing a new Hana ML and somehow managed to break off one of the cartridge pins… I ended up buying the broken cartridge off him with a view to dissecting it, trading it or something. He got a fancy pants higher end cartridge.
I ended up opening it up and thought I would give a repair a go. I fabricated a new pin out of some brass rod I have, desoldered the coil wire from the broken pin and removed the pin and inserted my DIY one. This was the part that was fraught with peril of course. The coil wires are ridiculously tiny and any over heating would just vapourise them. Once I got the pin in place I epoxied it in. I had been clever enough to tin the pin with some WBT low temp solder before I inserted it. The pin isn’t quite the same diameter as the existing pins, but works well enough.
I fabricated a toothpick as a tool to help me move the coil wire into place. I managed to tack the wire onto the new pin without any huge drama.
I put the cartridge body back together and mounted it to a cheapie headshell I had lying around. Once I had mounted it to the Technics, I put on an LP and lowered the stylus into the groove and was rewarded with two perfectly working channels!
It sounds great, albeit quiet given its low 0.4mV output going through the internal Technics MM phono stage.
Hifi Plus reviewed it back in 2019 and gave a well deserved glowing review. Stereonet also gave a really nice review. These Hanas give a real glimpse at high end Japanese exotica without the price.
I will get around to putting it into one of my better head shells, and maybe hooking up a higher gain phono stage.
“Building upon the foundation of the critically acclaimed HANA sound, the ML aspires toward affordable perfection and represent the further evolution of the “Brilliant and Gorgeous” quality that has earned HANA its worldwide reputation.
M Series Nude Microline stylus – Higher Specification Part
Befitting its name, the M Series uses a Nude Microline stylus, mimicking the cutting stylus and fitting more precisely into the vinyl groove. This enhances tracking to capture the most delicate musical details with better frequency reproduction, stereo imaging, and resolution.
High Purity copper wire – Higher Specification Part
Very high-purity copper wire is used for winding the ML coil with a new low impedance generator for optimised performance with a broader range of phono preamps
Delrin© cartridge body – Advanced Materials
The M Series cartridge body is injection moulded from Delrin©, a high-tech polymer with improved mechanical characteristics for better resonance damping, to reveal more low level information and enhance dynamic range.
Cryogenic Processing – Unique Technical Treatment
Cryogenic processing is Cold Annealing at near absolute zero temperature that restructures metals at the molecular level, especially important in the Alnico based magnetic electro-motive circuit (cartridge signal generator). The M Series parts treated include the front yoke as well as center and rear components. The result is a more precise and controlled magnetic flux field for greater linearity and musical sound quality.
Brass Cap with Threaded fittings – Superior Mechanical Interface
The Delrin© cartridge body features an integral machined brass cap providing constrained mode layer damping and its heavier 9.5 gram weight provides expanded compatibility with a wider range of tonearms and turntables.
Built into the M Series Delrin© cartridge body are metal threaded fittings for headshell mounting hardware, offering easier attachment and a superior mechanical interface for better bass and dynamics.”
Audio Satori 
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