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Hana SL vs Digital: Bass Light.

slavedata

slavedata

pfm Member
This morning I played Mark Knopfler's Privateering track on my Thorens 124, 12" Apparition wooden arm, Hana SL cartridge and noticed the very distinctive Bass drum note was very quiet. I then played the same track from a 44.1 rip using Pi USB into a Project P2 Digital DAC and the bass was strongly present.

So what is the possible cause? Should I try the cart more tail up or more tail down. I have as an alternative MC cart a DL103 with Shibata stylus is this likely to give more bass?
Suggestions welcome.
 
What position is the tonearm at the moment? I find the Hana prefers slight tail up but you need to check your VTF too - just over 2g works for me.
 
I can't speak of the SL but the ML is definitely not bass light, running level or slightly tail down on heavier pressings at 2.0 g VTF
 
slavedata said:
on my Thorens 124, 12" Apparition wooden arm, Hana SL cartridge
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Never heard of this so looked it up; forerunner of the Kiwi Siggwarm (sp?) 12", I believe. My limited experience contrasting unipivots (your arm, I believe) and gimbals has suggested that unipivots have their own mellifluous character, but are not particularly strong in the bass (cf. gimballed arms) but excel in other ways.

On my 12" Ace Anna, my Benz and Transfig. were fine but my Koetsu not, much preferring my 12" PU7. Both have roughly a 14/15g mass and fixed headshell. I'm not at all sure that the TD124 excels in the bass area, either, cf a 401, e.g.

I know nothing of digital music except for CD, and do find that CD bass is rarely lacking cf a higher end t/t combo. (my case, the Dais).

'Orses for courses, I think, and your black and white (?!?;)) expectations of a similarity between two or more formats in frequency terms is, I feel, optimistic. Love my CDP and in isolation it's all I want, but my vinyl player has the musical and nuanced edge if not the convenience. :)
 
Not familiar with the arm, but with that kind of set-up, I.e. very good, I’d expect mastering or pressing to be the culprit. Especially if this track seems to be an outlier. And especially with bass, if the record side is long. I have a vinyl and a CD copy of Miles Davis’ Get Up With it and on one very long side the bass is almost absent - I doubt the needle could stay in the tiny groove were it not.
 
You can't really compare the CD and LP pressings as you don't know what has been done to each or which one is most correct.

Not familiar with the arm but if you are using a Hana, you do need some mass at the headshell end. Try a blob of Plasticene or BluTak on the shell and try again.
 
The Hana SL is a low mass cartridge at 5g, with compliance of 10. That is going to work best with a reasonably high mass tonearm. I'm guessing your Apparition is pretty low effective mass from images I can see, but I haven't found any specs. Do you know the mass OP?

Oh, I just saw Dave's post. Would adding mass make up for a light arm?
 
hifi_dave said:
You can't really compare the CD and LP pressings as you don't know what has been done to each or which one is most correct.
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Exactly. Moreover, my experience with digital files is that they tend to emphasize upper bass while my analog system goes deeper without any artificial equalization. Certainly no shortage of bass, just very clean, (which may be mistaken for missing?)
 
Tonearm specification
Total Length 395mm
Effective length 310mm
Total Weight 695 gms
Effective mass 13gm
Cartridge weight range 4-16gms
Unipivot bearing Arm wand Cocobolo tone wood.

It was riding slightly tail up, I tried a quick shim of the back of the cartridge last night with a cut up plectrum, didn't seem to make much difference.
 
The Hana SL is not bass light- it is quite a full sounding item- is it loaded correctly at the phono stage end?
 
Elephantears said:
The Hana SL is a low mass cartridge at 5g, with compliance of 10. That is going to work best with a reasonably high mass tonearm. I'm guessing your Apparition is pretty low effective mass from images I can see, but I haven't found any specs. Do you know the mass OP?

Oh, I just saw Dave's post. Would adding mass make up for a light arm?
Click to expand...
Yes, it would.
 
I would have thought 13g was enough to present the Hana reasonably well. I think, as it's a bass issue, it's more likely to be inaccurate set-up, maybe too much anti-skate (hardly any needed on a 12" arm) or not having VTF near its top rating. However, it is possible, I s'pose, that if all those parameters are spot on, it's simply that the arm is not compatible with Hanas.

My own experience may not be indicative, but my 12" unipivot is not the best of partners with my Urushi; it likes a gimballed arm. Lyras are a different kettle of fish here, being happy with both but exc. with unipivots.

As far as VTA is concerned, having the back up at all is not generally conducive to transcribing bass frequencies.
 
myles said:
That's a rash generalisation.
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Maybe imprecise, Myles, as it does depend upon other factors like SRA, e.g. I do think it's fairly commonplace that raising the back of an arm accentuates (or, maybe, slews) the tonal balance to the treble side and can impart sibilance, whereas having the arm down at the back tends to reduce that 'sparkle', though not the bass.

Purely from experience rather than science, though, as I'm not sure why the rake of an elliptically shaped stylus should have this effect. The different contours/cut of the groove i.r.t. bass and upper frequencies probably have something to do with it, though.
 
Mike Reed said:
Maybe imprecise, Myles, as it does depend upon other factors like SRA, e.g. I do think it's fairly commonplace that raising the back of an arm accentuates (or, maybe, slews) the tonal balance to the treble side and can impart sibilance, whereas having the arm down at the back tends to reduce that 'sparkle', though not the bass.

Purely from experience rather than science, though, as I'm not sure why the rake of an elliptically shaped stylus should have this effect. The different contours/cut of the groove i.r.t. bass and upper frequencies probably have something to do with it, though.
Click to expand...
Well, the SL is a shibata which is extremely sensitive to VTA; arm position is not hard and fast with respect to treble and bass in that flat is not neutral necessarily, and tail up is not automatically predisposed to sibilance and hollow bass.
 
I have a Hana SL on a systemdek rb300 and I am still not sure I prefer it over the Dynavector 10x5 that was on it before. I originally used 2 rega 2mm shims and now have only 1 2mm shim. What bothers me about it is that it is extremely sensitive to surface noise and at times I find it actually suffers for IGD and off centre channel balance. The rega arm does not offer any azimuth adjustments and I have noodled a bit with anti skating but to no avail. On some records it sounds brilliant on others not so much. I would venture to say that my original Dynavector 10x5 (non shibata) cartridge was much more forgiving of most if not all records
 
The Hana feeds a pair of 6:1 Partridge 977 step up transformers. These feed an Audio Components P1 phono stage. Presents to an ECC83 with 51pF across 47K across the input terminal.
 
Have a faff with the tonearm set-up - don't forget that quite some movement of the arm column in the mount has very minor effect on stylus VTA. You will irreparably fook nothing by doing so.

13g is on the light-average side of the effective mass spectrum. Adding even a modest mass to the headshell will add significantly to the arm effective mass as the headshell is so far from the pivot (in complete contrast to adding mass to the CBW, which REDUCES arm effective mass).
 
6:1? What does that give you with respect to loading? Sounds a little low to me, might sound a little strident. I'd be aiming for 1:10 to give you 470 ohms approx.
 
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