Hana SL MK II MC Cartridge Setup Recommendations and Question

[Perrin2025]

Hello all -

Newb question here on setup of Hana SL MK II MC cartridge and what people would recommend for settings. I haven't had a turntable for decades, and the type of equipment I am using now is very new to me, so I have a few questions to verify setup and what others might recommend.

Setup:

• Technics SL 1200GR2
• Mcintosh C55 Preamp
• Revel Salon2 Speakers

Current Settings In Preamp:

• Load Impedance = 400 ohms
• Capacitance = 50pF (Not really relevant for this cartridge, but this is the lowest this setting will go in the preamp)
• Gain Db level = 64

After playing with these settings all weekend, I think this sounds pretty good. I am noticing to play at the levels I like I am turning the preamp volume up 50%-55% or more. Understanding the Hana cartridge is low output, is this normal to have to turn the volume up this high?

I am curious if others are running this cartridge what they are using for settings and how this might compare with their experience?

Thanks in advance for help. I appreciate it.

 

[OMC]

Hello all -

Newb question here on setup of Hana SL MK II MC cartridge and what people would recommend for settings. I haven't had a turntable for decades, and the type of equipment I am using now is very new to me, so I have a few questions to verify setup and what others might recommend.

Setup:

• Technics SL 1200GR2
• Mcintosh C55 Preamp
• Revel Salon2 Speakers

Current Settings In Preamp:

• Load Impedance = 400 ohms
• Capacitance = 50pF (Not really relevant for this cartridge, but this is the lowest this setting will go in the preamp)
• Gain Db level = 64

After playing with these settings all weekend, I think this sounds pretty good. I am noticing to play at the levels I like I am turning the preamp volume up 50%-55% or more. Understanding the Hana cartridge is low output, is this normal to have to turn the volume up this high?

I am curious if others are running this cartridge what they are using for settings and how this might compare with their experience?

Thanks in advance for help. I appreciate it.

Not a Hana owner but… looks like you have the preamp’s gain set to its maximum. Make sure you are plugged into the MC input or switched to MC. Standard rule of thumb is setting cartridge loading at ten times its internal resistance, so 80 would be about ideal but 100 would be just fine. Looking at the pre’s specs I see only one option and that is 22k ohms. You said you have it set to 400 ohms so either I’m not seeing something in the specs or it was left out at the Mac website. Anyway, as long as turning the volume up a bit more than previously isn’t a problem I’d say everything is working as it should. Lower cartridge output will have the effect you are describing. Happy listening!

 

[Perrin2025]

Not a Hana owner but… looks like you have the preamp’s gain set to its maximum. Make sure you are plugged into the MC input or switched to MC. Standard rule of thumb is setting cartridge loading at ten times its internal resistance, so 80 would be about ideal but 100 would be just fine. Looking at the pre’s specs I see only one option and that is 22k ohms. You said you have it set to 400 ohms so either I’m not seeing something in the specs or it was left out at the Mac website. Anyway, as long as turning the volume up a bit more than previously isn’t a problem I’d say everything is working as it should. Lower cartridge output will have the effect you are describing. Happy listening!

Thanks so much for the great response. Sounds like I am heading in the right direction at this point.

To your point about the gain, you are right that is the highest setting on the C55. I messed around with listening to the same material for a while and found that it sounded best to me. My biggest concern was that might be too high, but upon doing more research looks like that is OK for that cartridge.

There doesn't appear to be an official MC setting in the C55, so you just adjust the various settings on the applicable phono input based on what type of cartridge you are running. This caused some confusion for me when setting up as I was expecting there to be a specific option titled MC or MM to set the phono input to, but after talking to Mac's Support that appears to not be the case.

Yeah, it appears it goes 400, 1000, and then 47K as the impedance limit. I stopped at 400ohms as that sounded pretty good to me, but might try some other options to see what it sounds like.

The preamp and phono stuff is still pretty new to me so still learning the ins and outs, but thanks again for the great feedback.

 

[SnowmaNick]

Like @OMC said, as long as you’re not getting audible distortion or degradation of the audio when turning the volume up, it’s not an issue. You may want to check if the Mac has a gain setting for different inputs, these are used to make different source components operate at similar volume levels. A lot of pre’s don’t, but that C55 has a lot of features.