2. analog
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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.

theo71
theo71 OP
2 posts
 

noromance's avatar

noromance

9,415 posts

 

What are you using currently? What type of sound do you like? 
 

 Noromance, I bought the player used.  No idea how many hours are on the cartridge.  Listen to mostly 70’s and 80’s rock along with jazz.  

noromance's avatar
noromance
9,482 posts
 

You can't go wrong with the Audio Technica options.

bstatmeister
534 posts
 

Anyone heard a Garrott Brothers p77i from Australia? They get Chakster's endorsement for the the best New cart value which has me intrigued.

crawfishdaddi
13 posts
 

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...

bstatmeister
534 posts
 

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...

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