Головки звукоснимателя — HANA SH MK II

The HANA SH MK II is an MC cartridge with high output, belonging to the second generation of the S Series, designed by Masao Okada of Excel Sound in Japan. The MK II revision brought in a new cantilever and parts and processes taken from the more costly HANA models, and it made the body heavier than before. The US retail price is USD 850, it is covered for two years, and the body is black. Like every HANA model it is designed and assembled in Japan.

Key specs that matter

A Shibata stylus sits on a tapered aluminium cantilever. Output is 2 mV at 1 kHz, the internal impedance is 130 ohms at 1 kHz and the suggested load is the usual 47 kohm. Frequency response runs from 15 Hz to 32,000 Hz. Channel separation is 28 dB at 1 kHz, and output balance is kept under 1.5 dB. Vertical tracking force is 2 g, with trackability of 70 microns at that force. All of this comes in a body of 8.6 g.

Engineering and use context

The tapered cantilever is the main change of the MK II. Okada chose the tapered form because it is stiffer and lowers the effective mass at the stylus tip, so groove modulation is passed to the generator with less loss. The Shibata profile traces the groove with an elongated line contact, which helps on the inner tracks of a record. The generator uses an Alnico magnet with a cross-coil wound from high-purity 30 micron copper wire. Key metal parts, namely the yoke, the pole pieces and the gold terminal pins, receive cryogenic treatment. The body shape comes from the M Series models and is designed to avoid resonance. It is damped with a matte black elastomeric resin coating described as Soft Feel, and it is capped in brass with threaded fittings for the mounting screws. The added weight of the MK II body was chosen to improve coupling to the headshell and to widen the range of compatible tonearms.

Pairing

With its high output the SH MK II drives a standard moving-magnet phono input directly, with no step-up transformer or dedicated moving-coil gain needed, and the standard input found on almost every MM stage matches the suggested load. This makes it a practical choice for integrated amplifiers with a built-in MM phono section. A turntable owner moving up from an entry-level MM cartridge can keep the existing phono stage, since no gain change is required. The medium body mass works with many tonearms, and the threaded mounting holes simplify fitting to fixed or detachable headshells.

Alternatives

Owners of MC phono stages can choose the HANA SL MK II, the S Series sibling rated at 0.4 mV for phono stages with moving-coil gain.