Kuzma CAR-70, Hana Umami Black or HSE Audio ML-4?

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Interested if anyone has acquired or had the opportunity to audition these three very interesting pieces of engineering art on equipment otherwise familiar to them.

1. Certainly interested in preliminary thoughts of those who have heard.

2. Even more interested in folks' initial takes of the engineering and design choices taken in their approach and implementation (as well as the choices omitted, overlooked or not taken) among individuals who have not heard.

Be creative, conjecture and have fun,
KDC

 

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I see the Hana Umami Black listing was dissolved from overture. Uh oh! Someone was naughty! Musical Surroundings isn't happy.

Briefly, for those who did not read the details before they were wiped from reality in real time by The Entity, here are some highlights of Okada-kun's newest House Brand from excel (not where the Wild play for all you Minnesota hockey fans).

1. Familiar "External Ear" design, I'll call "The Pinna". Constructed of alloy A7075 with Black Urushi Lacquer applied by apparently a most mysterious or marketing gimmick description than that Lacquer of the Umami Red. Wooden (dare I say Ebony) inlay. Dare I call this effect a "tonewood"? It would seem to increase desirability and mystique, but I’m gonna go with “looks cool”, and "reads even cooler in predd releases" then any honest attempt of using it to tune or augment the cartridge sonic profile. honestly, it’s probably more of a function of Umami series uniformity in subsequent build designs for easily identifiable BRANDED cartridge aesthetics.

2. Almost certainly made by hand by skilled JP artisans as opposed to a chain gang on work detail down in Georgia.

3. Avoidance of inAppropriate magnets for the situation. Given the rest of the specs of the cart, they didn't make the dunce move for samarium-cobalt magnets ("rate earth")...ooooh. They utilized Nd2Fe14B (not just Neodymium but the even more rare Neodymium Iron Boron rare earth magnet) [same damn thing, marketing team strikes].

4. A 3D crystal lattice of pure carbon cantilever. Harvested by David Corenswet himself, between recent film takes, from the dying heart of a White Dwarf star.

5. A non-boring armature. A square carbon-permalloy hybrid (as opposed to pure good old iron on the Red) armature with very high magnetic permeability and apparently much less likely to result in significant magnetic field disturbances (I suspect the main reason it was selected) due to bobbin movements with stylus deflection within the set array of stronger magnets. They are using multiple strategies to optimize the magnetic circuitry and motor over the predecessor assembly which is very cool. 4N (doesnt sound very impressive, right?) OFC (I'm going to say monocrystal with zero grain boundaries bc it sounds better for marketing too) 3E5 Ao diameter [sounds way more scientific and precise] Cu wire coils "hand wound" per "machine" (yeah I get how this works, but it’s amusing how they need to emphasize the Artisanal component of everything). Impedence is reported at 5 DCR per channel, so clearly the motor dynamics are much different. This sh*t is pretty exciting and is probably where the black is gonna pull way ahead of the red, setting aside, that Kal-El harvested the Cantilevers from dead Red Giants in binary systems (at very clear and obvious peril to himself if you know his backstory) and forged them by hand. it’s unclear if the coil wire is actually any different from that used on the Umami Red. My guess is "absolutely not", a new contract and sourcing a new supplier is just not worth it for this single iteration.

6. New motor assembly and yokes improving the inherent difficulties of obtaining C4 crystalline Cantilever control of resonance, Damperage and suspension, Called OKD (for Okada-chan) with a patent pending front and rear yoke design built to address the above metrics and shortcomings. Particularly cool are the changes in the front yoke system (we are told) to improve disruptions in magnetic field uniformity & flux density, Eddy currents, thus improving (we are encouraged to assume) signal fidelity, clarity, sounds staging and reducing distortions.

7. I assume the stylus is another microline nude diamond, like the red, because the listing was purged by Tom Cruise & MI8 before I could finish reading it, but I would not be flabbergasted if they chose to go with a microridgre stylus, because it’s more Madonna-like (Vogue), And that’s what all the "cool kids" are wearing. although you can certainly insert your favorite excuse for a stylus change here ***** and confabulate like a patient with Wernicke's, hands flapping in complete asterixis with fulminant hepatic encephalopathy, more difficult to follow than a three year-old on why all those Cheetos are gone while there’s orange cheese dust all around his mouth and fingertips right before dinner.

Be nice to me because my iPhone autocorrect is not!

Next up, my uninformed thoughts and baseless speculationon the Kuzma CAR-70, based on a diagram I saw once.

Now it's time to run the fields like I used to run the streets when my trap was always jumpin' before I moved to the Midwest and invested excessively in John Deere.

 

[mtemur]

Familiar "External Ear" design, I'll call "The Pinna". Constructed of alloy A7075 with Black Urushi Lacquer applied by apparently a most mysterious or marketing gimmick description than that Lacquer of the Umami Red. Wooden (dare I say Ebony) inlay. Dare I call this effect a "tonewood"? It would seem to increase desirability and mystique, but I’m gonna go with “looks cool”, and "reads even cooler in predd releases" then any honest attempt of using it to tune or augment the cartridge sonic profile. honestly, it’s probably more of a function of Umami series uniformity in subsequent build designs for easily identifiable BRANDED cartridge aesthetics.

Obviously you have no idea how ebony sounds, what it does to the sound, and—more importantly—the effects of lacquering. Try playing a guitar or violin in raw wood form without lacquer.

In fact, lacquering can sometimes have more influence than the material itself. That said, neither the wood nor the finish alone can fully guarantee good sound for the Umami cartridge. It may or may not, but one thing is certain: the ebony body and lacquer over it have a huge impact on the final sound signature.

 

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Obviously you have no idea how ebony sounds, what it does to the sound, and—more importantly—the effects of lacquering. Try playing a guitar or violin in raw wood form without lacquer.

In fact, lacquering can sometimes have more influence than the material itself. That said, neither the wood nor the finish alone can fully guarantee good sound for the Umami cartridge. It may or may not, but one thing is certain: the ebony body and lacquer over it have a huge impact on the final sound signature.

Mtemur, you misunderstood my post, which is understandable and easy to go thru text and writings. Always easier to have these conversations in person. Rereading, it's also clear that I was not clear.

The post was aimed (as most of my posts are) at multiple targets: expressing true enthusiasm about the Umami Black, satirizing the marketing deployment of it (which was thick), self deprecating reflection of myself (attempt at humor), asking "the peanut gallery" (I'm a Minnesotan, Charlie Brown) if they had anything cool to share.

Reread my post through that lens. I was not questioning the effect of Urushi Lacquer, merely the marketing hype in how the manufacturer described the black Lacquer application process vs the red Lacquer (which had no description of the technique), even though they were probably applied in the same manner. As the owner of Reed 3ps with different tonewoods, that sounds differently, I also don't question the effect of a tonewood. The target again was marketing in whether we can call an ebony inlay versus an ebony wooden body a "tonewood voicing" (the former maybe?? the latter definer yes). It was a mockery of scale, not of effect.

The image posted below, I hope, is res ipsa loquitur.

KDC

 

[mtemur]

Mtemur, you misunderstood my post, which is understandable and easy to go thru text and writings. Always easier to have these conversations in person. Rereading, it's also clear that I was not clear.

The post was aimed (as most of my posts are) at multiple targets: expressing true enthusiasm about the Umami Black, satirizing the marketing deployment of it (which was thick), self deprecating reflection of myself (attempt at humor), asking "the peanut gallery" (I'm a Minnesotan, Charlie Brown) if they had anything cool to share.

Reread my post through that lens. I was not questioning the effect of Urushi Lacquer, merely the marketing hype in how the manufacturer described the black Lacquer application process vs the red Lacquer (which had no description of the technique), even though they were probably applied in the same manner. As the owner of Reed 3ps with different tonewoods, that sounds differently, I also don't question the effect of a tonewood. The target again was marketing in whether we can call an ebony inlay versus an ebony wooden body a "tonewood voicing" (the former maybe?? the latter definer yes). It was a mockery of scale, not of effect.

The image posted below, I hope, is res ipsa loquitur.

KDC

I agree that there’s often more marketing than actual technical detail in product descriptions or press releases. With cartridges, this is even more noticeable. There has been a lot of discussion about the high prices of top-tier cartridges and the marketing hype used to justify them. IMHO, cartridges are where the biggest rip-offs happen—and cables come right after.

 

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I agree that there’s often more marketing than actual technical detail in product descriptions or press releases. With cartridges, this is even more noticeable. There has been a lot of discussion about the high prices of top-tier cartridges and the marketing hype used to justify them. IMHO, cartridges are where the biggest rip-offs happen—and cables come right after.

Sadly enough, I'm a sucker for these marketing gimmicks. I picked up a CA Diamond Jubilee MC & Kohaku on a hunch.

I have another hunch that the Hana Umami Black will be another gamechanger (maybe not DJ or Kohaku level, but a pinnacle for any price).

My completely uninformed opinion, given the CAR line of carts did not perform to the level I was hoping, is that the CAR-70 will either be a monster, a Muhammed Ali, of carts that is the best of all time, or it's going to have some "flaws" and be an "audition fully and carefully" recommendation that "isn't meant for everyone."

Certain things I was looking for in the press release given its build, that competitors have engineered their way around in unique ways, have been absent from it's descriptors. That did not encourage me about the prospects, but have yet to hear the CAR-70 & it would cool to hear from those who have heard it or who have one, by hook or by crook.