Inexpensive MM Cartridge

Peter_s, I've been very happy with my Nagaoka MP-200.
It didn't take long to break in and it's a lot of cartridge for the money.

Shure  v15 on the used mart. The best you can afford. No brainer with that tt. 

Depending on you musical tastes, I always find myself coming back to the "OPUS 3 TIMBER"  for $275.00. I believe it would be a fine match with your TT.  Now, I don't know if this would interest you but I have in my possession a SHURE V15 type Vx MR. It was a lab standard at Shure. Never played, never mounted, so it is essentially "NOS" . I have it listed as is for $500 on US AUDIO MART. If you are interested I'll let you have it for $300. My only caution is that I do not have original mounting kit. I would include all the hardware I have. I do hope that you have experience mounting cartridges. If interested email at

[email protected]
AXPERT

@mwinkc - thanks for your encouragement.  I am hopeful.

@jrpnde - I would agree that there are some advantages to pre-matched cartridges and arms.  Not that I trust the manufacturer's to provide the best sounding cartridge (there is a bottom line to protect, after all) - but I do expect that the cartridge compliance will properly match the arm effective match, and (if there is no VTA adjustment) the cartridge will match the required VTA.  There is no VTA adjustment on my TT, nor did I know the effective mass of the arm to match the compliance (hope I didn't shoot myself in the foot there).  But I think it's also possible that the cartridge I purchase will exceed the stock, and I do know how to set up a cartridge (despite my transgression above).  We shall see....

Update: it's pretty much impossible to find effective mass value for the Pioneer PL-512 S-tube tonearm. The  Nagaoka MP-200 seems to be a low compliance cartridge (though I read that Japanese specs for dynamic compliance are taken at 100hz rather than the required 10hz - the whole things is a spaghetti mess!).  I can always use a test record to determine resonance frequencies and if I need to increase the tonearm mass use some blue tack to optimize and then order a heavier headshell to increase the effective mass.