Warm sounding phono cartridge

Surprising. The Umami blue is a relatively warm catridge. I agree with suggestions to have set up checked by a professional. Or may be deffective. 80 Ohms is borderline. Of course it dépends of the set up but 100 ohms is recommended. Is the gain to high?

Personaly, I had a Hana SL and upgraded to a Pure Fidelity stratos at 2000$  A bit less detailed, but more Bass punch and sound stage. The reviews on the Stratos are simply outstanding and so is my listening experience.

From what you have said, I'd  have the cartridge itself checked. I once bought a brand new cartridge that just didn't sound right. It was sent back to the mfg and checked. It was bad. They sent me a  new cartridge. New items can and do come out of the plant that are defective.

Either that or they’d rather not argue with a customer. It’s easier to just replace the cartridge than to dispute the claim, and it turns a disgruntled customer into a grateful one.

@ericba I initially had the cartridge loaded at 100 Ohms at 60 db of gain, then dropped it to 80 as I thought it sounded a little bright on my gear. I don’t think that there’s a problem with the cartridge. It just seems like a good cart for critical listening. I’m rather new to the hobby and I found cartridge shopping a little frustrating. There’s seemingly endless options based on my budget. I live in New Hampshire. Boston, MA is not far. There’s about 6 or so decent home audio shops within 1.5 hours. However, cartridge shopping is a real pain. I basically did some online research and settled on the Hana Umami Blue or a Soundsmith The Voice and went with the Hana mainly because it was highly regarded by my local dealer and I saved some money trading in my Clearaudio cartridge. I guess Hana and Clearaudio have the same US distributor.  

There’s practically no difference between 80 and 100 ohms load for an LOMC with an 8 ohm internal resistance. The difference certainly ought not to affect tonal balance in any significant (audible) way. But we convince ourselves anyway.