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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.
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- 23 posts total
I have a nag mp-200 and I am continually stunned by how amazing it sounds... I've had it for coming up on a year now and it remains outstanding (even more now that it's broken-in). My plan was always to start with the mp-200 so I could save a little money by using my Technics 1500's on-board phonostage (which is actually pretty decent). I always thought when it was time to replace the cart, I'd upgrade to a tube phonostage that could handle a LOMC cart and get a Hana. HOWEVER, the mp-200 sounds so good, I'm STRONGLY considering keeping my system as is and just upgrading to the MP-500. I might be Nagaoka for life... |
I was bewildered why my MP-200 was sounding so thin and shrill, but as an experiment I put the 200 needle on my mp-150 cartridge and immediately the bass and dynamics were back. Not sure what's going on there, but my suspicion is that I bought the whole mp-200 with headshell and that nagaoka headshell was lighter than the standard Technics (so maybe Nags like heavier headshells?), I had to adjust the counter weight to compensate a tracking force of 1.8g. You gotta love Analog.... BTW, this whole conversation has got me researching affordable MC carts and probably the next one I would try is the Denon DL-301 mkii. I haven't heard one bad review of it and a couple vinyl rips sounded really good. Might also keep Denon in mind... |
@crawfishdaddi +1 Nagaoka MP500 over a LOMC. |
- 23 posts total