Nagaoka MP-500 MP 500 MP500 Phono Cartridge

SKU: NAGAOKAMP500

$854.10
Save $94

NAGAOKA MP-500 MP 500 MP500 PHONO CARTRIDGE

The Nagaoka MP-500 phono cartridge offers the highest musical and creative expression of the new MP series. It expertly extracts and reproduces with vivid, colorful and dimensional clarity what others miss. Experience the image solidity, detail resolution, and bass extension that made the Nagaoka MP-500 one of Stereophile's Editors' Top Picks For The Industry's Best Products.¹

The Nagaoka MP-500 features an exclusive super-rigid body for ultra low resonance and superlative fidelity with a superfine polished line contact diamond stylus. Its characteristics include a powerful samarium cobalt magnet, low-mass high-strength boron cantilever, carbon fiber reinforced plastic shoe and anti-ferro magnetic perm alloy shield casing.

Nagaoka MP-500 Phono Cartridge Specifications

- Type: Moving magnet
- Cantilever: High-strength boron
- Stylus type: Superfine line contact diamond
- Output voltage @ 1kHz,5cm/sec: 3mV
- Frequency response: 20Hz-25kHz
- Channel balance @ 1kHz: > 1dB
- Channel separation @ 1kHz: > 27dB
- Recommended loading: 47k ohms
- Dynamic compliance: 8.5 x 10-6 cm/dyne
- Tracking force range: 1.3 - 1.8 g
- Weight: 8 g
- Break-in period: 30 hours
- Stylus replacement: Nagaoka JN-P500

¹ Michael Fremer et al, "Recommended Components: Editors' Top Picks For The Industry's Best Products," Stereophile, Vol.34 No.4 (April 2011): 66.

Does exactly what it is supposed to do, and does it well

I was looking for a turntable to transfer a couple hundred vinyl records to digital format. Since whatever setup I used for the transfer would be how I heard all those LPs from now to forever, it seemed to make sense to avoid cheaping out. OTOH, it's not worth it to me to spend thousands of dollars on an esoteric audiophile turntable. We already have a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Evo turntable in the living area with the stereo, but I didn't want to commandeer that unit for transfer purchases,. That unit wins all the awards for "best under $1000 setup", but I'd need an external phono preamp and A/D converter, pushing the total cost to over $1k. The AT-LP120XUSB is less expensive and includes everything needed to connect to the PC, so it was an attractive option.

After reading a bunch of reviews of various turntables, I came to the conclusion that I was overthinking it and just went with this model. This turns out to be the right choice for my purposes. Once I had it set up I compared it directly with the Pro-ject unit, and the differences were subtle, if there were any audible differences at all. It works, it sounds good, and seems quite durable.

PROS:
o Setup is straightforward, since the TT, tonearm, headshell, cartridge, and stylus were all engineered together.
o The included stock AT-VM95E cartridge/stylus is well regarded and allows for an easy upgrade if you want a better stylus.
o Solidly built in the tradition of the Technics 1200 that it is modeled after.
o Professional quality internal phono preamp and A/D converter.
o Sounds basically identical to a unit twice the price
o Does basically everything it's supposed to do, and does it well.
o Since it's a DJ turntable, it should hold a good resale value - once I'm done digitizing the records I have I'm probably done with it so I might sell it at that point.

CONS:
o If you try to use both the USB and analog line out simultaneously there's a prominent high pitched whine - the engineers did not adequately isolate the two from ground loops - while this is a disappointment to me, there are easy work-arounds and few people are going to connect both.
o It's fully manual, so perhaps not the best choice if you just want to play records.
o If you have a receiver with a phono preamp, you don't need the internal one or the A/D converter so you'll be paying for things you don't use
o Your audiophile buddies will not be impressed.

Was a great replacement works perfectly

Awesome Products, Support and Communication

Shout out to the LP Tunes team fantastic support and follow up. My go to for my vintage audio needs

upgrade kit

exactly what i needed. thx!

Nagaoka MP-110H Stereo Cartridge & Stylus with Headshell

Fantastic deal

Great Service and worth the wait. A great store for your HiFi needs. I highly recommend this store to everyone.

Record player up and running

There are so many different needles out there - would have been easy to make a mistake and buy the wrong one. But the LP Tune website made it clear which one worked with my Denon, it came quickly, and my record player is working again after a week. Great experience.

Needle replacement

Thanks for taking the time to find the right needle for my record player.

Nagaoka MP-500 MP 500 MP500 Phono Cartridge

Customer Reviews

Let customers speak for us

Nagaoka MP-500 MP 500 MP500 Phono Cartridge

Customer Reviews

JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER

Let customers speak for us