Stereophile – August 2019

"extraordinarily

powerful...

uncolored...

natural"

• John Atkinson, Stereophile.

The JosephAudio Pulsar

15" High, 8 1/2" Wide.

Spectacularly Deep.

Get the full story at

http://www.josephaudio.com

"Devastatingly right"

"The Pulsars are

veritablelight-sabers"

• Steven Stone, The Abso!ute Sound..
  "For those of you who have
  dreamed of owning relatively
  compact stand mount monitors
  that really do convey the sense of
  reproducing (near) full-range bass,
  your loudspeaker
  has arrived!"


• Chris Martens, The Abso!ute Sound.

JosephAudio

EffortlEss Musicality

ExclusivE tEchnology

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56 August2019nstereophile.com

GRAMOPHONE DREAMS

recording I played, the four-times-

more-expensive Etsuro Urushi Cobalt

Blue excavated instrumental textures

with extremely high tactility factors. In

contrast, the Hana ML demonstrated

a noticeable tendency to smooth out

or generalize those same textures. I

observed this low-grade smoothing us-

ing the super-resolving, quasi-ribbon,

Magnepan LRS loudspeakers as well

as my reference Harbeth 30.2 moni-

tors, both driven by Pass Labs’ XA25

stereo amplifier.

Curious whether this smoothing

might have been caused by the Musical

Surroundings phono stage, I connected

the Hana ML to the combination of

EMIA Phono transformer and Tavish

Design tube phono stage.

The first record I played with

that combo was Ito Ema playing the

Goldberg Variations—and once again I

remembered why I like SUTs (and

why I think Todd Garfinkle got

the microphone placement on this

recording exactly right): With the

Phonomena II+ phono stage (set for

121 ohms), the ML sounded clear and

strong and undistorted, but maybe a

little too straightforward—yet with the

EMIA SUT, the ML’s sound acquired

a full dose of that high-nickel-content

radiance: something I first encoun-

tered ages ago while listening through

Western Electric 91A amplifiers. The

Hana’s Alnico magnet coupled to the

EMIA’s dense nickel core gave notes

from Ito’s 1903 Steinway a halolike

shimmer that I could bathe in for days.

It brought new details into the light.

It gave music a super-3D, apparition-

like presence. The ML-EMIA combo

showed me a level of nuanced pho-

nographic beauty I never imagined

possible at anywhere near this price. It

was maximally satisfying.

I like my music brilliant and

the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty

(Warner Bros. WS 1893) as a starting

test for correct tonality: If American

Beauty sounds rich and real—if I get

that authentic Dead guitar sound—

then the component gets a gold star.

At 59 ohms, the Hana was a little less

flowing than I prefer, but its large-scale

punch and grab were impressive.

When I switched the ML’s loading

from 59 to 121 ohms, it immediately

earned a gold star. And at 121 ohms,

the ML allowed The Country Blues of

John Lee Hooker (Riverside/Electric

high-purity copper wire for

an 8-ohm impedance and a

0.4mV output. Other specs

include an 8-ohm impedance

and a 0.4mV output. (Hana’s

EL and SL cartridges use a 15

micron 4N copper wire and

have a 30-ohm impedance

and a 0.5mV output.)

The Hana ML’s specs call

for a load of greater than 100

ohms, but I initially set the

Phonomena II+ phono stage

at its lowest (59 ohms) set-

ting, just to see how the ML

would behave fully loaded. I

used my original pressing of

Recording Company RLP 12-838)

to sound breathier, more wide-range,

and more transparent. It increased the

clarity of analog tape hiss (in the back-

ground) and made John Lee Hooker

more there (in the foreground).

I tried the Hana ML at 243 ohms,

where it became cleaner, more precise,

and even more transparent. But I pre-

ferred 121 ohms, where the left hand

of Ito Ema’s piano was better toned

and more commanding than with

either the Hana SL or EL. What most

distinguished the Hana ML from its

popular, lower-cost siblings was how

forceful and dynamic its bottom five

octaves were.

The ML’s power and naturalism re-

ally showed themselves when I played

one of the most spectacular recordings

in my collection: The Music of Edgard

Varèse (Columbia MS 6146, in a six-eye

pressing). Composed in 1930, Ionisation

is the first classical composition to em-

ploy only percussion. It employs kettle

drums, snares, gongs, bells, and police

sirens. Instead of tone, it focuses on im-

pact, power, and masses of high-energy

sound. The Hana ML presented this

dazzling display of avant-garde inven-

tion with unusual force and extremely

pure transients.

On the Varèse and every other