Synergy

@mulveling From experiences had to date, I have found that a Cartridge transforms in its capabilities as it leaves the £1500 - £2Kish cost and is a Cart' coming in at the High £2K's the £4K+ region.

There is a range of Cart's that are very likeable and even much admired in the lower price range. 

The Upper price range, is where I experience most Cart's in use today.

It is within this price range that experiences have left me with the impression, Cart's of this Value Transcend in performance and impression able to be made.

It is this impact of impression made, that makes the individual want to be broadening the range of impressions that have proven so attractive. I certainly don't see the desire to experience differing models and designs as an infliction being expressed by a compulsive consumer. Most experiences had that have been extremely attractive are on both owned and unowned Cart's.

My experiences have been that a Cart' that can make a extremely good impression, when coupled to a certain TA > TT, can repeat this impression made in multiple systems, and used through a variety of Phonostages.

As long as a Cart' has the voicing that has the fundamental attraction to a particular user, they are for me looking like a safe bet to recreate this trait in all set ups to be used.  

Hence, my interest in the Hana Umami Blue, does it really offer all that is stated to date for such reasonable monies. Then there is also the cockiness/confidence the owned system will most likely give a Cart' increased potential to improve performance, over some of the systems used giving the favourable reviews.  

@mijostyn : "  My mind changes all the time ...."

Well almost everything is changing each second including our mind but this is not the issue due that if our mibnd is changing all the time then the audio reproduction  home world will be  a disaster/nigthmare.

Our targets needs to be really specific, clear/pristine  and the way each one of us try to achieve all those targets is other and different subject.

In my case and through the time my targets were up-grading with necessary modifications " here and there " but my main targets dis not changes in its essence in the fundamental way. Of course that as we learned and through the years along new audio " technologies-improvements " and " new " know-how each time the audio system targets are near to be achieved till you decide ( I or we ) that it's time to in true enjoy the MUSIC as never before.

That's why I don't buy new top cartridges and when I started to live wirth the Essential 3180 I rediscovery my cartridges and thak's to my friends I listened almost all the today top cartridges ( not the Atlas Lambda Sl , yet ). My system is rigth on in the targets. For how long?, I don't know but my today listen sessions are " out of this audio world " where eacjh past up-graded to amps/speakers still surprise me.

I don't know how to explain when you are THERE because it's something that you have to experienced to know what THERE means and tghrough your posts maybe you are near but certainly not THERE yet and that's why you follow spending money in audio items trying to be THERE.  

I know from your posts that you still have a long road and " fun"/$ " looking for THERE.

I was like you unstable but today I enjopy my stability better than ever. No VIV no Dava and the like for me.

I have to say that till today I never listened any vintage/today MM/MILOMC cartridge that truly sounds really bad but what changed through the time is that today several LPs sounds not very good and the issue is that the LPs that were or had excellent mastering job performs excellent too and if I remember was @mlavigne who posted the critical importance of mastering but not in threads where all we know the importance of the recording mastering but in a thread where a gentleman wanted to know which " characteristics " look for for high quality listen levels. I participated in that thread and if I remember you did it too but only he touched in specigic the " magig " of recording mastering. The difference in my system is not low, recordings with good mastering listened way way better something that in the past was not at today high levels.

R.

Are the stylus profiles different?

I’m probably switching to the the Clearaudio Maestro cartridge.   
 

Dear @mijostyn  : " My mind changes all the time and in it's own little world it is entitled to do so. ..."

Yes as many of us but you changed overall suddenly in the last 2 years and I want to share with you my take about.

In the past I experienced in my system different amp/speaker set up: bi-amp with SS in the low bass and tubes in the other frequency ranges, tri-amp with different SS amps, etc, etc and through those first hand experiences i learned the critical importance of CONTNUITY for the MUSIC can flow in natural way as in live events.

You made some changes in your system ( it's not a critic. ) where from my experiences and point of view you broke that continuty in your system: first you choosed to handle the subwoofers in the digital domain ( crossover. ) against the other ranges in pure analog ( analog bass is different to digital bass ) and after that you choosed to by-amp using SS along tubes and latter you posted that now you are thinking to tri-amp with a SS in the HF range.

All those goes against continuity that's the foundation in MUSIC other than the bass range.

Only saying.

R.