Can you run the HANA SL MC at 100 ohms?

@spiritofradio The original post is over a year old, so I don't think you have to worry too much about hijacking it.  I'm not an expert at this stuff either, but you have to take into consideration that your cables also add some resistance, so you may actually be somewhere around 700 ohms when you factor in the cables.  That may or may not make a difference in how the cartridge sounds, depending on your phono stage.

I am using a Parks Puffin phono stage with my Hana SL, which has only two options, either 200 ohms or 47K.  I've been running it at the 200 ohm setting and it sounds good.

I think it's a nice cartridge at its price point.  I have some that I've paid less for that sound almost as good and some that I've paid more for that sound a bit better.  There are noticeable differences, but not dramatic ones.

I think you have to have realistic expectations about how much difference a cartridge will make in terms of sound quality (and "emotional involvement") and also whether your turntable, phono stage, the rest of your system, and your hearing are resolving enough to notice a dramatic difference.  It's possible there are some folks here that exaggerate the amount of difference they hear when they make an upgrade.  What matters is what you hear.  

big-greg, Just so some other neophyte doesn’t go off on the wrong track, are you adding 185 ohms of resistance to spritofaudio’s statement that he sees 515 ohms at the inputs of his 834P, in order to get to 700 ohms? If so, that’s WAY wrong. No phono cable (typically less than 2 meters in length) is going to exhibit more than a few ohms resistance, usually less. Perhaps you are confusing resistance with capacitance. Cable capacitance does have to be added in with input capacitance in order to calculate the load capacitance, and a pair of ICs could add as much as 50 to 150pF, but for an MC cartridge like the Hana SL, that is not such a big deal. But resistance of a phono cable is usually irrelevant because it’s quite low.

Spiritofaudio, Doesn’t the 834P use a built-in SUT in order to achieve gain sufficient for an LOMC cartridge? If so, you cannot determine load impedance without knowing the turns ratio of the SUT, but maybe I am wrong; the 834P might have an active gain sufficient to deal with an LOMC without a SUT.
And finally, you guys might look back at the first several responses to this post. Typically, you want the input load resistance to be about 10X the internal resistance of the cartridge. Since the Hana SL has a 30 ohm input resistance, theory suggests it should be loaded with at least 300 ohms. Of course, you can go much higher, as well. And if you go lower, nothing explodes; but lower load resistances will tend to roll off the highs and eventually to sink some gain to ground, which means the cartridge will start to waste signal voltage.
chili555, The most likely reason that your Hana sounded poor when you removed the SUT was not due to load but due to insufficient gain into an MM input.  Maybe that's what you meant.

Thanks @lewm I did read the thread (3 times). It’s a learning experience for me.  If you tell me what an SUT is I could check to see if that is indeed what’s in my phono amp.  

Re: my hearing: I don’t pretend to be all that discerning but I do have a genuine love for good sound and exceptional physical problems with bad sound (you could ask my wife). And very sensitive speakers that pick up flaws and nuances.

Re capacitance:

Together with the sales guy I added up the capacitance of what my my rig would be with the Hana cart including headshell, arm/wire, table, and cables and we thought we were well within tolerances. 
Re: resistance

we looked up the MC number for the 834p and it was well above recommended, but some of the fellows here indicate that they’re getting exceptionally good sound with lower resistance phono amps, so...

@big_greg, what you wrote about expectations and experience is what I’d been tending to think too in relation to this cartridge. I may also have made fortunately good pairings with previous carts. I hear a little more detail but probably not $400 a year worth. I think I posted recently (to you?) that I may just go back to an AT when it’s time.

Or I could be all wrong and have other big problems or it’s just a mismatch with my TT. I really don’t know enough to say for sure. 
Still enjoying it though; Particularly on new records. It doesn’t seem to do the magic on the old ones that I keep reading about.

@lewm Yes, I was thinking about capacitance, not resistance, and thanks for making that distinction.

@spiritofradio I mention hearing, not because I think yours might be bad, but because I think that's a big variable.  I'm approaching 60 and while I can discern differences between cables, cartridges, bit rates for digital music, etc., those things don't make dramatic differences to me.  Things like speaker changes, different amps, preamps, turntables, CD players, etc., are much more dramatic.  What might seem like a subtle change to me, and not worth spending a ton of money on, may be "dramatic" to another listener and worth every penny.