Haniwa’s HCVC01: A breakthrough product?

THIS ISSUE: Mikey tries something totally new, gets grounded, and then, with the help of a new watchdog, manages to avoid charges.

Lately, current amplification–based moving coil phono preamplifiers have gotten a great deal of well-deserved press. For years, Haniwa’s Dr. Kubo has been designing and selling super–low-internal-impedance cartridges because such cartridges work best with such devices. He has also been designing and selling his own current-amplification phono preamplifier; I recently reviewed one of each as part of Haniwa’s Vinyl Playback System, which consists of ThePlayer—a modified Transrotor supplied turntable—the HTAM01 tonearm, a modified ViV Lab Rigid Float tonearm; the HTCR-CO phono cartridge; and the HEQ-A03-C1 current-mode phono stage.

Here’s something new to Haniwa’s range and to hi-fi: the $6000 HCVC01 passive current-to-voltage converter. It’s analogous to a step-up transformer and is intended to feed your choice of moving-magnet phono preamplifiers. I don’t believe anyone has previously produced anything like this. It’s housed in a modestly sized, substantial metal chassis about 7.5” × 5” × 3.5”. On one side are a pair of XLR inputs, a pair of RCA outputs and a banana jack ground lug. Maximum output voltage (depending on the cartridge used) is claimed to be 10mV—about double that of your average MM cartridge. That’s maximum, so it should be fine for most MM phono preamps.

I was sent one of those, along with a version of the $10,000 HCTRCO phono cartridge, which has the same model designation and looks very similar to its predecessor, which I wrote about in last October’s Analog Corner. The HCTR-CO is designed and built by Kubotek, whereas previous Haniwa cartridges were made by Y. Matsudaira, who makes cartridges for Air Tight and his own brand, My Sonic Lab. Buy ’em together—the HCVC01 and