NagaokaCartridge MP Series - MP-110 Record Cartridge

I have always used moving magnet phono cartridges. I recently came to the conclusion that new cartridges outperformed vintage ones, so I had been using an Audio Technica VM520 and was very happy with it. I had no reason to upgrade. Then I started reading and watching reviews of the Nagaoka MP-110. Reviewers all said how amazing this cartridge was and how I should run out and get one...today! I was intrigued. The deciding factor was that this is not a moving magnet cartridge (or moving coil). It is a moving permalloy. Basically, a cartridge with the high output of a MM but with the sonic improvements of a MC. The permalloy material is lighter so the stylus cantilever is not dragging heavy magnets around. The stylus is free to more accurately track the groove. The elliptical stylus is also .4x.7 instead of the usual .3x.7. This was described by some reviewers to provide better contact with the groove and sound better with older, worn records. OK....I'm in. I installed the MP-110 on my AR XA turntable, set the tracking force to the middle of the recommended range and adjusted the overhang to reduce tracking error. I decided to play only vintage records. No remastered stuff. From the very first play I was amazed. I had come to accept a certain amount of distortion, especially in the high end and a certain amount of reduced low end from records. It was just inherent in the medium, I thought. Well, this MP-110 cartridge proves that it can be eliminated, if not greatly reduced, at least. The sound from this cartridge is so clean and crisp you have to remind yourself that you are listening to a record. The low end is amazing on this cartridge. Acoustic guitars sound like real acoustic guitars with realistic low end. Every bit of overdrive and fuzz on electric guitars is there. Guitar effects like flanging, phase and Leslie are clearly reproduced. Terry Kath's Telecaster never sounded so good. I look forward to playing every record I own in the coming months (and years) and rediscovering the music contained in those grooves. If you have only used MM cartridges because you didn't want to spend the money on an expensive MC cartridge (or don't have a MC phono stage), do yourself a favor and try out this Nagaoka. You will not be disappointed.

In terms of bang for your buck, the MP-110 hard to beat. It has a nice, balanced sound (warmer than many AT carts), good imaging, and tracks unusually well for a bonded elliptical stylus. I will occasionally get a bit of IGD on some records with this cartridge. One nice thing about the MP-100 through the MP-200 is that the body is the same shape. Supposedly the innards vary as you go up the line, but a MP-200 stylus will fit the MP-100 body and work just fine. So if you want to improve the tracking of the MP-110 even more, you can buy an JN-P150 or even a JN-P200 stylus as an upgrade sometime later without having to mount a brand new cartridge.The lego-block shape makes it easier to align this cartridge than others i have worked with. On some turntables (Technics in particular), the overhang requirements for certain alignments will make the cartridge dangle off the end of the head shell a fair amount. In some cases it can come up a bit short. The head shell that came in my kit is a bit longer than average with some weight taken out to compensate.

Look, I’m an idiot, okay? I had a really nice Ortofon Black that I straight up broke by dropping the tone arm and bending the stylus. (In this economy!) Long story short, I don’t have the money for a nice cartridge right now. But I didn’t want to go without records, so I bought this to hold me over. But after installing it myself (actually pretty easy to align because the front is so squared off) I realized it gets you pretty darn close to the quality of carts in the 600-800 range, at least for the kind of music I like—rock, pop, metal, hip-hop. Nothing audiophiley or fancy. Just solid, punchy bass and decent highs without being sharp. Not a lot of surface noise or other nonsense. Tracks well. Especially good for my vintage Motörhead records, which aren’t great recordings and weren’t cared for by the original owners. Is it as good as much more expansive carts? Not if you’re into 180 gram jazz. But if you’re a person trying to make rent, I don’t know why you wouldn’t get this.