MP150 or MP200

Project 1 expression2 with modifications and speed control . elekit tube preamp upgraded and modified using Jan 12AT7 with SS phono stage connected to Mccormack DNA125 amp 
 All interconnects , speaker cable and and power cable are JPS Labs superconductor connected to Richard Gray power station . Speaker are Magnepan MG12 with external upgraded crossovers . Digital duties are carried by a Opera Audio Turandot CD Player 

Grace made disco cartridges with Beryllyum cantilever and it's a huge advantage over aluminum, but for higher price! Strange that they would use beryllyium as it is a very brittle element for disco use .

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 .

You know when someone mentioned vintage cartridges I thought of the same thing and up to where I know all cartridges must have some type of suspension as what then supports the cantilever .

Case in point , the mentioned Sony cartridge , when I investigated it goes all the way back to the 70s . I personally would never buy a cartridge that has been sitting on a shelf for 5 decades no less !

but for some reason you think that modern MM are any better?

Where did I say that ? I never said that . I said that cartridge suspensions can change over the years . Thats it 
 Nothing more . Plus I know MM cartridges as I have been an avid audiophile for almost 50 years . All my favorite equipment are old timers as Dalquisht DQ 10 , Spica TC 50 , DCM time windows . Mac 225 , Dynaco 416 with capacitance supply . Linn LP12 , Systemdek x2 , Heybrook Turntable , AGI preamp and many more . Don't jump to conclusion and read carefully my friend . Plus I stand by my original argument . It's true,  cartridge suspension hardness can change over the years . Even temperture changes on a new cartridge can change its performance on a day to day basis .

Well guys . I took a desicion and sent my broken Ortofon Salsa Moving Coil Cartridge to soundsmith to be recantilevered . It will have a shappire cantilever with lasercut nude line contact stylus for 300 bucks 
 Not bad and I really liked the way it sounded in my system with its aluminum cantilever so I assume that with a shappire camtilever it'll sound even better . My MP 110 will be relegated to second hand duties . Plus the rebuilt will have 1 year warrantee . Not bad , not bad at all 
 Anybody have experience dealing with soundsmith ?

My system sounds ok . There is a video on youtube where they swap the stylus and it doesn"t seem to make much of a difference . Nagaoka states that in it of its cartridges the generator system is updated like better windings , purer metal and it seems that the cantilever assembly has been tuned for its particular generator . That would mean that one particular stylus and cantilever assembly will sound great with the cartridge its intended to but will degrade the sound if you changed it to another cartridge in its lineup . Another problem with Nagaoka is their pricing strategy.
 They went up in price some time ago and are expensive . I have the MP110 which cost me 132.00 . If I which to buy the next up in line , the MP150 I would have to shell out over 350.00 ! And the next one up would be the MP200 at almost 500.00 . And then there is the 300 and 500 which is 1grand !

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 ?

I'm pretty sure we are going overboard on the subject of new vs vintage in the context of phono cartridges . There is always a middle ground where we can all be happy .

I remember my first true highend cartridge , a Supex 901+ . It was a high output Moving Coil cartridge which sounded wounderful 
 Even today when you see them being sold at ebay , audiogon or USaudiomart they don't have to wait for long to be sold but they sell for quite a bit of money . And they are vintage . I bought mine at 1979 , cost me 225.00 at that time . Had it connected to the phonostage of a Audionics by Oregon BT2 phonostage and that into a pair of Dynaco Mark 6 mono block power amps .

What I am trying to say is when a piece of equipment is good , it is good , period . Take a well performing pair of Dalquist DQ10 speaker and I'm pretty sure they can stand their ground against any modern speaker design with the latest and greatest computer animated design 

So don't disregard something just because it was design 20 or 30 years ago . Same thing applies to vintage cartridges . I remember Harry Pearson of the Absolute Sound use to say that the midrange of the ADC MM cartridges is the best he has heard in his life . Apply the same to the midrange of the Marantz 8B tube amp