The Songbird is very nice but quite a way above your original £300 price tag but if you are going to look at that price range instead I would take a listen to a Hana EL or SL.
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I think the decent Sumiko in the price range the OP is looking for is the Moonstone.
Which I have on my Technics deck feeding a Naim phonostage. But really hard to say whether it will be a good match with the Exposure or not.
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[quote=“Rushboy, post:40, topic:36840”]
What do you think of this?
First it´s a high output MC - something like not fish not meat. Additionally it´s not a proper match to your tonearm (CU=12/ 100 Hz → 16,8/10 Hz)
I understand what you say (and why) but I’m trying to square it with the appearance of Dynavector cartridges in pics of Well Tempered decks, which I have always assumed to be a good match. When I first saw which turntable the OP had, my immediate thought was DV10x5, especially when @Rushboy suggested he might up the budget a bit.
Well Tempered’s own MM option, the TLC, is based on the Nagaoka MP150 (18 x 10-6 cm/dyne). Are either the WT TLC, or Nagaoka MP150 worth considering?
Edit: I see the Nagaoka options, and higher up their range, have been suggested already!
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Seems like the safest options so far.
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Fact is a large number of good interesting cartridges are available out there - and in most price ranges to empty your wallet.
Recently I went for different cartridges such as Rega ND and Audio Technica AT33EV.
The new Ortofon Concorde Bronze on my list as well.
The Songbird comes in two versions of low and high output. The example in the Rushboy post above is a low output version of 0.5mv.
It is similar with the Hana cartidges low output EL, SL, ML and high putput versions EH, SH, MH/
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Please refrain from posting unauthorised commercial links in the Hifi Corner. Thanks.
I’ve already had the DV 10x5 HO twice.
Once on the Rega Planar 8 and on my current Well Tempered.
And each time I sold it again.
Either it’s MC with high power, or the Shibata cut, which I don’t like.
I like the cheaper gold ring 1042 much better on the Rega and even more on the Well Tempered.
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I owned a Nagaoka MP500 and couldn’t put up with it for more than a few months due to it’s overly warm and colored presentation. It was soon upgraded to an Audio-Technica VM540ML RigB, and eventually to my present Goldring 1042. Price is not necessarily a reliable indicator of performance.
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I´m sorry to hear that, but overly warm presentaton is more likeley a topic that´s linked to the load you attached to the cartridge (impedance and capacitance)
Nagaoka moving magnet cart MP-11 (which I have, replaced by MP-110
which I don’t have)?
That number includes tonearm cabling, phono leads and phono stage. For the resistance those first two will be insignificant, but for capacitance, they themselves will likely meet or exceed the 100pF.
I think realistically most people will not be able to have their load be under a 150pF-200pF.
Would you mind sharing the phono cabling (or measuring its capacitance if you can) and phono stage you used?
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I was using an Audio Technica AT-OC9 MLII for years up until recently when I upgraded to a Lyra Kleos SL at around £3700. It is certainly better but to be honest the OC9 gets you 80%+ of the way there at one tenth of the cost!
So I second the recommendation for an OC9 - it really is one of the few extraordinary bargains in audio and above this diminishing returns bite hard…
JonathanG
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Like everyone else, I was just trying to help.
Correct; Furthermore proper load is dependent on coil inductance and impedance of the pickup. But these values are not shared by Nagaoka.
Werner Ogier did some measurements for TNT-Audio for the MP-11 and did proof that the cartridge needs to be loaded with significant higher values.
Some time ago I found 640 mH inductance and 810 ohms coils impedance for the MP-300 waht would point at high-frequency resonance of the Nagaoka Generator to start in the audible range at 12 kHz when loaded with 250 pF. This would fit to what Werner Ogier measured for the MP-11.
Additionally Werners measurements points at mid range performance is significantly reduced when loaded below 250 pF, what might be coincidentially be valued as a overly warm and colored presentation (a bit too much bass, a reduced mid range and far too much of treble).
Consequently he went with >500pF of load for a linear frequency response and this is what other users repeatedly reported.
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The German Nagaoka distributor specifies a value of 150-200pf final capacity for the MP series.
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The manufacturer knows that, the number they publish is what they recommend the customer configure on their phono stage, manufacturers are not expecting end users to have either multimeters or the knowledge to used them.
Nevertheless, a small change in capacitance from 100pf F to 200pF may slightly affect the high frequency response, but not the lower midrange where warmth resides.
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