My system is a Brio-R and some RS3's. Do you think the Nag could sound too woolly with this system?
AT VM95 EN, no contest. The Goldrings are AT cartridges in disguise.
The Ortofon Red is old news now. Nothing special.
Beware, old Nagaokas are a bit lacklustre and will tame bright speakers, but not so the AT VM, which is a tad bright, more CD-like if you will.
If you can spread to the VM 95 ML at £ 150, do it. This is a magical device.
That is interesting - I've had static issues with mine on my 1210 - pops and clicks while playing. Not with other cartridges.obviously system / deck dependent (I would imagine), but I had the MP-110 and suffered with 'static' issues - you could hear a 'fizz' through speakers / headphones when lifting the cartridge from the surface of a record after it had been playing a while. Did a search and found a couple of threads concerning it, so it's not just me. ATs and ortofons (when I was using them) didn't seem to exhibit the same issue.
Had to return mine - but definitely YMMV territory.
AT VM95 EN, no contest. The Goldrings are AT cartridges in disguise.
The Ortofon Red is old news now. Nothing special.
Beware, old Nagaokas are a bit lacklustre and will tame bright speakers, but not so the AT VM, which is a tad bright, more CD-like if you will.
If you can spread to the VM 95 ML at £ 150, do it. This is a magical device.
That is interesting - I've had static issues with mine on my 1210 - pops and clicks while playing. Not with other cartridges.
right - although as I said in my previous post, the most notable aspect of my problem was the 'fizzing' when lifting the stylus from the record surface - it would slowly wear-off over the course of a few seconds. Actual static-y pops during play may well have been worse with the cartridge accordingly, but I suffer that regardless so didn't try to assess it in that respect particularly.
the one thing, in a completely uninformed way, that strikes me from this thread is that the MP-110 is a moving iron, whereas the others I mentioned are not ...
Certainly sounds like a grounding issue to me - static energy building up and not having an exit route. I’ve never had the slightest issue with the two Nags I’ve owned (Stilton MP-11 & MP-500) but maybe significantly these both have a metal body so may behave differently in relation to arm earth. I’m very particular about turntable earthing too, e.g. I always make sure the turntable main bearing has continuity to earth as I’m convinced it kills static. I actually use a multimeter to check everything I think should be grounded actually is!
PS The times I have experienced this kind of thing all traced back to issues with the tonearm earth, i.e. the arm-tube/headshell not having continuity back to mains earth. FWIW I’ve had it with MC carts, not MM or MI, but I suspect that was fluke as it was an arm ground issue.
There exists a couple of methods for testing the shield ground connection, a quick and dirty method being to touch the shield with a metal probe (a pin or unfolded paper clip will do) and should hum not be heard then the shield is working.
I've actually got an Ortofon Red on my GR right now. I don't recognise any of the above comments about it being screechy. For the cost, I would say it's remarkable and provides a very balanced and listen-able experience through my system. Well worth the loose change it cost imo.
Looking at the physical differences between Ortofon's and Nagaoka's take on IM (i.e. Ortofon's VMS, which they've been doing for so long that they don't even mention it anymore, simply calling theirs MM), combined with combing through the verbiage within the two makers catalogues (both MPxx and MPxxx in the case of Nagaoka), one can deduce that the relative loading sensitivities come down to magnetic field strength vs. coil length.All the 2Ms have really low capacitance requirements so if used with a phono stage that has >100pF onboard they tend to sound horribly bright and drag everything along by surface noise and hi-hats (i.e. grow a response spike at about 8kHz). Load them correctly, ideally <150pF total including arm-lead, and you won’t hear it.
One of the things I really like about the Nagaokas is they seem way, way less sensitive to this. My MP-500 sounds great into my Verdier valve pre that I think is optimised for old Shure’s etc, it sounds terrible with Ortofons, just so bright. Yet the Nag still sounds great into my spare Quad 34 that has had it’s phono card modified for modern Ortofon or AT carts so is 39k/30pF IIRC. It just doesn’t seem to care. The Ortofon sounded awful into the standard 47k/220pF Quad board. Just so bright and thin.