Nagaoka Cartridges: Overview of the Range
Nagaoka has been making styli and cartridges in Japan since 1940, and for most of that time it has done so quietly. The company began life producing precision parts for watches and jewellery, and that background shows in the way its cartridges are built: small tolerances, consistent assembly, and a house sound that has changed remarkably little across five decades of the MP series.
What makes Nagaoka interesting to anyone shopping for a cartridge is that the range is unusually coherent. Every model here is a moving magnet design, every model runs into a standard 47kΩ MM phono input, and the differences between them come down to three things: the shape of the diamond, the material of the cantilever, and the rigidity of the body. Understand those three variables and the whole ladder makes sense.
What MP actually stands for
Nagaoka’s cartridges are described as MP, or Moving Permalloy. It is a variation on the conventional moving magnet principle rather than a different technology altogether. Instead of fixing magnets directly to the rear of the cantilever, Nagaoka attaches a small permalloy (a nickel-iron alloy) core, with the samarium cobalt magnet held in the body behind it. The moving part of the assembly is therefore lighter than in a conventional MM design.
That matters because the mass sitting behind the stylus determines how quickly the cantilever can respond to the groove. A lower moving mass tracks high-frequency modulation more accurately and reduces the force the record has to exert to move the assembly. It also means the cartridge can be run at sensible tracking forces without losing composure in dense passages.
The practical benefits are the ones MM buyers care about: healthy output (no step-up transformer or MC stage required), a user-replaceable stylus, and forgiving compatibility with the medium-mass tonearms fitted to most turntables in the £500 to £5,000 bracket.
Reading the range
Three technical variables separate one Nagaoka from the next, and they upgrade in a broadly predictable order.
Stylus profile. A conical tip contacts a small, roughly circular patch of the groove wall. An elliptical tip has a narrower front-to-back radius, so it sits deeper into the modulation and traces high frequencies more accurately. Line contact and micro-ridge profiles take that further, presenting a long, thin contact patch that mirrors the shape of the cutting stylus itself. Better profiles retrieve more inner-groove detail and reduce distortion at the end of a side, but they demand more careful alignment.
Cantilever material. The cantilever transmits groove information to the generator. Aluminium alloy is light and well damped. Boron is considerably stiffer for a given mass, so it flexes less and passes on more of the signal rather than absorbing it. The move from aluminium to boron is the single most audible step in this range.
Body construction. As you move up, the bodies become more rigid and better shielded, which reduces resonance and the amount of stray electrical noise reaching the coils.
Nude versus bonded diamonds. A bonded diamond is a small piece of diamond fixed to a metal shank. A nude diamond is a single piece, so the tip mass is lower and the assembly is more responsive. The MP-150 is where the range switches to nude diamonds.
Nagaoka MP-100
The entry point, and a genuinely capable cartridge rather than a token one. The MP-100 pairs a conical diamond with a lightweight aluminium cantilever in a half-inch mount. The conical profile means it is tolerant of imperfect alignment and less punishing on worn or well-loved records, which makes it a sensible choice if a large part of your collection came from charity shops and car boot sales.
Tonally it is warm and unfussy, with a solid midrange and rounded treble. It will not extract the last detail from a well-pressed audiophile reissue, but it makes almost anything listenable, and it tracks reliably at 2.1g.
Key features:
- Conical diamond stylus, 0.6 mil radius
- Lightweight aluminium cantilever
- Half-inch mounting, 6.5g body weight
- 22dB channel separation at 1kHz
- Recommended tracking force 21mN (2.1g)
Buy the Nagaoka MP-100 at Premium Sound – £119.00
Nagaoka MP-110
The model that built Nagaoka’s reputation in the UK, and still the one most people mean when they mention the brand. The MP-110 swaps the MP-100’s conical tip for a superfine polished bonded elliptical diamond with a 0.4 x 0.7 mil radius, sitting on the same aluminium alloy cantilever and driven by a samarium cobalt magnet.
The elliptical profile is what you hear. Cymbals gain shape and decay rather than simply appearing as a wash, and vocal sibilance is better resolved. Channel separation improves to 23dB and channel balance tightens to within 1.5dB, both of which help the stereo image sit more securely between the speakers. It is a natural fitment for a Rega Planar 2 or 3, a Pro-Ject X1, or as the first upgrade on a deck supplied with a budget cartridge.
Key features:
- Superfine polished bonded elliptical diamond, 0.4 x 0.7 mil
- Aluminium alloy cantilever
- Samarium cobalt magnet
- 23dB channel separation, 1.5dB channel balance
- Recommended tracking force 18mN (1.8g)
Buy the Nagaoka MP-110 at Premium Sound – £149.00
Nagaoka JT-80 LB
The JT-80 LB sits slightly outside the numbered MP hierarchy. It belongs to the Jeweltone line, launched to mark Nagaoka’s 80th anniversary, and it takes the established MP formula in a redesigned body with a distinctive finish.
Technically it is close to the MP-110 in specification, with a 0.4 x 0.7 mil diamond on an aluminium alloy cantilever, but the revised body and the stated dynamic compliance of 7.3 x 10⁻⁶ cm/dyne give it a slightly different character: a little more weight in the lower midrange and a firmer sense of timing. It mounts to standard half-inch headshells without special tools, and at 6.9g it balances comfortably in most arms.
If you want the familiar Nagaoka presentation with a touch more body, this is worth auditioning against the MP-150.
Key features:
- 0.4 x 0.7 mil diamond stylus
- Aluminium alloy cantilever
- Dynamic compliance 7.3 x 10⁻⁶ cm/dyne
- Channel separation above 22dB at 1kHz
- Recommended tracking force 1.8 to 2.0g
Buy the Nagaoka JT-80 LB at Premium Sound – £219.00
Nagaoka MP-150
This is where the range starts to feel properly high-end. The MP-150 introduces a nude Japanese diamond in place of the bonded tips used further down the range, mounted on a hardened, low-mass tapered aluminium alloy cantilever.
Removing the metal shank drops the effective tip mass considerably, and the tapered cantilever is stiffer at the base where it needs to be. The result is a noticeable gain in transient speed. Piano attacks arrive with more definition, bass notes stop as cleanly as they start, and complex orchestral passages hold together where the MP-110 begins to congest. Channel separation rises to 24dB, and the soundstage gains depth as well as width, so you get a better sense of where instruments sit relative to one another.
For most listeners with a decent belt-drive or direct-drive deck and a competent phono stage, this is the value sweet spot of the range.
Key features:
- Nude superfine elliptical diamond, 0.4 x 0.7 mil
- Hardened, low-mass tapered aluminium alloy cantilever
- Samarium cobalt magnet
- 24dB channel separation, 1.5dB channel balance
- Recommended tracking force 1.8g (1.5 to 2.0g)
- Handmade in Japan
Buy the Nagaoka MP-150 at Premium Sound – £349.00
Nagaoka MP-200
The MP-200 keeps the MP-150’s nude elliptical diamond but replaces the aluminium cantilever with boron, and this is the step that separates the upper half of the range from the lower.
Boron is significantly stiffer than aluminium for a given mass. A stiffer cantilever flexes less under the lateral forces of the groove, so more of the signal reaches the generator instead of being lost as bending. In practice you hear it as increased resolution at both frequency extremes and a quieter presentation overall: the space between instruments becomes more apparent, and low-level information that was previously buried starts to surface.
The body is carbon-fibre reinforced and magnetically shielded, which lifts channel separation past 25dB and extends the response to 23kHz. Note that the MP-200 prefers a higher load capacitance than the models below it, at 150 to 200pF, so cable choice and phono stage settings become worth attention here.
Key features:
- Nude superfine elliptical diamond, 0.4 x 0.7 mil
- High-strength boron cantilever
- Carbon-fibre reinforced, magnetically shielded body
- Frequency response 20Hz to 23kHz
- Channel separation above 25dB, channel balance below 1.5dB
- Recommended load capacitance 150 to 200pF
Buy the Nagaoka MP-200 at Premium Sound – £415.00
Nagaoka MP-300
The MP-300 retains the boron cantilever and elliptical diamond of the MP-200 but houses them in an appreciably more rigid body. At 8.0g it is the heaviest cartridge in the range apart from the MP-700, and that mass is doing a job: a stiffer, better-damped housing gives the generator a more stable reference against which to work, so less energy is lost to body resonance and less structural colouration is added to the signal.
Two specification changes tell the story. Channel balance tightens to within 1.0dB, which produces a more precisely located centre image, and the recommended tracking force drops to 1.6g, indicating a more compliant, better-controlled suspension. Frequency response extends to 25kHz.
The MP-300 is a cartridge for a system that is already resolving. Paired with a mediocre phono stage it will sound good; paired with a decent one it starts to communicate the acoustic of the recording space rather than just the notes played in it.
Key features:
- Superfine polished elliptical diamond, 0.4 x 0.7 mil
- Hardened, low-mass, high-strength boron cantilever
- Super-rigid body, 8.0g
- Frequency response 20Hz to 25kHz
- Channel separation above 25dB, channel balance below 1.0dB
- Recommended tracking force 16mN (1.6g), load capacitance 150 to 200pF
Buy the Nagaoka MP-300 at Premium Sound – £629.00
Nagaoka MP-500
For many years the flagship, and still the model that best represents what Nagaoka does. The MP-500 introduces a line contact diamond on a low-mass boron cantilever, held in the same class of super-rigid body as the MP-300.
The line contact profile is the significant change. Where an elliptical tip contacts the groove wall across a short arc, a line contact tip presents a long, narrow ridge that follows the shape of the original cutting stylus far more closely. Two things follow. First, high-frequency information that an elliptical tip averages out is resolved distinctly, which is most obvious in the last few minutes of a side where groove velocity is lowest. Second, the contact patch is larger overall, so pressure per unit area falls and record wear is reduced despite the lower 1.6g tracking force.
Channel separation reaches 27dB and response extends to 25kHz. The trade-off is that line contact profiles are unforgiving of setup error: azimuth and stylus rake angle need to be right, or you will hear the mistake rather than the improvement.
Key features:
- Superfine line contact diamond stylus
- Low-mass, high-strength boron cantilever
- Exclusive super-rigid body, 7.8g
- Frequency response 20Hz to 25kHz
- 27dB channel separation, 1.0dB channel balance
- Recommended tracking force 16mN (1.6g), load capacitance 100pF
Buy the Nagaoka MP-500 at Premium Sound – £739.00
Nagaoka MP-700
Launched at High End Munich to mark Nagaoka’s 85th anniversary, the MP-700 is the current flagship and the most substantial redesign the MP series has seen in years.
The stylus is a micro-ridge nude diamond measuring 0.12 x 0.3 mil, a far finer contact geometry than the line contact tip of the MP-500, mounted on a boron cantilever. Behind it, Nagaoka has revised the magnetic circuit and fitted its softest damper to date along with a new suspension wire integrated into the pivot assembly. A softer damper allows the cantilever to move more freely at low amplitudes, which is where micro-detail lives, while the suspension wire keeps that movement controlled rather than loose.
The body is machined from ultra-duralumin, a high-strength copper-aluminium alloy, and given a three-layer surface treatment of nickel plating, black tin plating and an insulating coating. The stated purpose is reducing static build-up and electrical interference, and the measured outcome is a channel separation figure of 30dB, comfortably the best in the range, with response extending to 27kHz and tracking force down to 1.4g.
The output of 4mV is high for a cartridge of this calibre, which means it drives a standard MM stage confidently and keeps the signal well above the noise floor. This is a cartridge that rewards a properly set-up arm and a phono stage of matching quality.
Key features:
- Micro-ridge nude diamond stylus, 0.12 x 0.3 mil
- High-quality boron cantilever
- Revised magnetic circuit, softest Nagaoka damper, new pivot suspension wire
- Ultra-duralumin body with three-layer surface treatment
- Frequency response 20Hz to 27kHz, 30dB channel separation
- Output 4mV, tracking force 1.4g, load 47kΩ / 100pF
Buy the Nagaoka MP-700 at Premium Sound – £1,149.00
Setup notes worth knowing
Loading. All of these are moving magnet designs and want 47kΩ resistive loading, which is standard on any MM phono input. Capacitance is the variable that catches people out. The MP-200 and MP-300 are specified for 150 to 200pF, while the rest of the range is specified for 100pF. Total capacitance includes your tonearm cable, so a long or high-capacitance interconnect can push you well past the target and produce a lift or a dip at the top end. If your phono stage offers switchable capacitance, use it.
Tracking force. Nagaoka’s figures are precise and worth following. The upper models run lighter than the entry models, which is a function of better suspension design rather than a suggestion that lighter is always better. Setting a line contact stylus too light is one of the more effective ways to damage a record.
Tonearm matching. Body weights run from 6.5g to 8.0g and compliance across the range is medium, which suits the medium-mass arms fitted to the majority of modern turntables. Very light or very heavy arms are worth checking against the resonance calculation before committing.
Stylus replacement. Every model here takes a user-replaceable stylus assembly, so the body and generator can remain in the headshell for the life of the cartridge. Budget for replacement at roughly 1,000 hours of play for the elliptical profiles, with line contact and micro-ridge tips generally lasting longer thanks to their larger contact area.
If you are unsure which model suits your arm and phono stage, our team can advise on matching before you order.
