MP150 or MP200

Sony XL-50 on its dedicated headshell is much better cartridge than Nagaoka MP-200.
It is one of those cartridges that can be found today for reasonable price.
If you have not seen a review for Sony I am not surprised, the XL-50 and XL-70 were the best MM cartridges Sony Sound Tec Corp. ever made (in the 80’s). At that time SONY was pretty serious about analog (cartridges, turntables, tonearms).

SONY established Sony Sound Tec Corporation to produce phono cartridges. Not every equipment manufacturer can make a phono cartridge, but the Sony Sound Tec Corp. combining all the passion and knowledge has released some very interesting models in the early 80’s. The XL-50 is one of two finest Moving Magnet cartridges from SONY. Very special features are as follows: The Joint-less delta-type core; Boron Pipe cantilever and nude Super Elliptical Diamond; A screw holds the stylus holder firmly in place; Distortion caused by flex is virtually eliminated; Cup-shaped damper and tension wire! This lightweight and high compliance cartridge is designed for low mass tonearms. Loading recommended by the manufacturer is from 47k Ohm to 100k Ohm. Cartridge output is 2.0 mV. Frequency response is pretty wide: 10Hz - 50000Hz! The price for XL-50 was ¥25000 in 1981. Boron Pipe cantilever is nothing but a grown crystal of Pure Boron into a pipe configuration (wow). A tip mounting hole made using a laser beam. This technology is no longer available, instead of ultra lightweight PIPE configuration you can get only heavier Boron ROD configuration from cantilever manufacturers nowadays. Boron PIPE is associated ONLY with vintage High-End cartridges (MM or MC). I have two samples of SONY XL-50 and this is an excellent MM cartridge with exotic cantilever!

Nagaoka branded Jeweltone in Japan and all new models are just a versions of the very old design from the 70’s. Jeweltone MP-50 is Nagaoka MP-500. An old Jeweltone/Nagaoka MP-20 is new Nagaoka MP-200. Nothing new here @mijostyn

The mass of my Project 1 expression 2 carbon fiber tonearm is around 8.6 grams which I understand is on the medium side . The specs on the compliance of the Nagaoka MP110 puts it a little on the low side for a moving magnet cartridge . After over 50 hours of breakin sometimes I was having a little dryness with upfront sound on some recordings in the uppermidrange . Put some blutack on the headshell to see if the uppermidrange forwardness was caused by compliance problems between cartridge and tonearm .
The forwardness was subdued greatly up to the point where its not a problem anymore . 
I like the MP110 very much . It's a very coherent and controlled sound that hardly ever irritates . Its bass is not the most powerful or tight but is in line with the sound spectrum of the cartridge . It doesn't jump out at you but its there when you want to hear whats going on down there .
Come to think of it this would describe the sound of the cartridge as a whole .
Now what is it that I don't like about its sonics on my turntable that has prompt me to upgrade ?
Its lacking of low level detail . It seems that it is so smooth that in its intent of always sounding smooth it took away a bit to much information . Bare in mind I am not talking about dynamics . It is nicely dynamic . For the price its a very.musical cartridge but its musicality comes at the expense of a lack of uppermid and high frequency information . Does the MP150 give me whats missing in the MP110 or in order to get it must the move be towards the MP200 ?

Nags are WAY overpriced for what you get, AND what you hear.

You need to expand your horizons.

For THAT kind of money, you can select many vintage carts and original styli (multiple!) that will absolutely TROUNCE the Nags, ALL of them!

Wolfie62 would you share a few of those combos that you’ve tried and recommend? I’m looking to explore some different vintage carts. 

Apart from the Nagaoka for which I agree went overboard when they changed their pricing I' ve been considering Denon DL 110 , DL 301 2 , Grado Opus 3 new timbre series , Audio Technica New OCL series , Vessel cartridges Ortofon Quintet red .