Need help with phono cartridge selection


Hello all,

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. I am finally getting around to upgrading my phono cartridge and looking for some advice. I mostly listen to rock and jazz using the following setup:

Receiver - denon AVR 4306
Speakers - Polk audio 
Record player - Pioneer PL-630 with medium mass arm.

With all the reading I have done I am in information overload and not sure which direction to go. Current budget is roughly 500 or less. 

Current cartridge considerations:
Denon dl-110
Ortofon om20
Ortofon 2m Bronze
Nagaoka mp-200 or the 150
AT ML540ML
AT VM95E or ML
Hana EH
I am open to other suggestions as well 

Again, I am new at this so I appreciate your patience and your help. 

Theo.

theo71

+1 @billstevenson First, welcome to the ‘Gon!  Unfortunately I can’t help with your cartridge question, but I’d say for this and future posts you should always share what equipment you have now, what specific improvements you’re looking for, and what sound characteristics are most important to you.  This will greatly help people to make recommendations that are inline with what you’re looking for otherwise you’ll get stuff that’s all over the place and not necessarily consistent with your specific tastes/goals.  Put another way, the better/more info you give upfront the better and more effective recommendations you’ll get here.  Best of luck in your search. 

Of the cartridges you selected I think the VM540ML and the 2M Bronze are best. If you can push a little harder the Goldring 1042 is a dynamite cartridge. It has a Gyger S stylus on a boron cantilever punching way above it's price point. It is the equivalent of the 2M Black LVB at a little over 1/2 the price. 

I had a Nag 150 for years which I loved and with all the hype about the 200 I finally pulled the trigger since it was supposed to give me more of what I loved about the 150. However while the 200 was more detailed, it was too thin and lacked bass and mid range presence. I'm pretty upset about the purchase honestly. I think the 150 has the best overall balance and for some reason the dynamics are better, too. A real head scratcher, but I guess I learned something.  150 all day long and twice on Sundays!

You might consider a phono amplifier instead of the receiver's input. Try a Schiit Mani 2 into an aux input.