Ortofon Cadenza Blue + Ortofon Verto transformer or Hana ML + yet undecided transformer?
The Cadenza Blue is sort of a known quantity as it is in most respects very similar to the Kontrapunkt b, a cartridge I got along with very well when I owned one. But . . . buying the Hana represents a considerable saving over the Ortofon, freeing up money for a better transformer. I’m not terribly familiar with the Hana cartridges, but they are highly spoken of on this forum.
Phono stages used are either a Lehmann Black Cube SE or Jolida JD9, turntable is a ancient and honorable square motor cutout Well Tempered with the carbon fiber tone arm and black damped platter added over the years (making it essentially a Well Tempered Super).
I’ve pretty much made my mind up on the Ortofon combo, but I’m still racked by doubt.
Or am I going about this upgarde the wrong way around, and should I be looking at a better phono stage?
Not owned a Hana, but I like Dynavector carts and the Allnic H-1201 is OK second hand. Make a good combo, directness of the Dynavector and the slight softness of the Allnic.
I am not a big fan of Ortofon to be honest, I don’t like the Kontrapunkt I have.
This and a pair of Sowter 1480s, primaries loaded with a 130R either side to get 100ohm effective load. Gives £400 or the equivalent to do other stuff with.
I’ve had a series of DVXX2’s, on my old Thorens TD2010 (that might have been a MK1 though), my old LP12, the Clearaudio I’m trying to sell, and the SME. I’ve never had any problems. I’ve had particularly good results with the Clearaudio and a Allnic H1201 and later the H1500 II SE which I’m currently using with my SME 20/2.
Bottom line is that the Dynavector DVXX2 is a very solid all round cartridge used with a variety of arms and phonostages.
Highly recommended. I would like to try the Hana SL at some stage though.
I’ve not heard an Ortofon in my system but did sit through an hour or so demo through their range up to and including Cadenza Bronze and Black recently. A few days later I received an ML to try in my system.
It was great to hear the Brz and Blk back to back in the same system. Both sounded great and it was obvious why there’s a debate as to which flavour one might prefer. The Blk spotlit instruments and opened out the soundstage more so than the Brz which seemed to do a great job of letting the music flow, it was easy to like.
The ML in my system is more akin to the Blk in the way it spreads the soundstage out but it’s fuller and tonally richer with all the transparency the Blk seems to major on.
Have a word with murrayjohnson, sure he’d let you try his ML demo.
Ortofon’s have always sounded ‘nice’ probably a safe option, but in best tradition of recommending what we own, I’ll add Audio Technica Art9 to your list. If you’ve got plenty of gain with your SUT you could do the sums with Art7 too and see which suits best.
I’m currently using an Audio Technica MM cartridge (AT150MLX) that is quite enjoyable, never really thought about staying “in family” with this upgarde but you’ve given me something else to mull over.
