Need help with phono cartridge selection


Hello all,

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. I am finally getting around to upgrading my phono cartridge and looking for some advice. I mostly listen to rock and jazz using the following setup:

Receiver - denon AVR 4306
Speakers - Polk audio 
Record player - Pioneer PL-630 with medium mass arm.

With all the reading I have done I am in information overload and not sure which direction to go. Current budget is roughly 500 or less. 

Current cartridge considerations:
Denon dl-110
Ortofon om20
Ortofon 2m Bronze
Nagaoka mp-200 or the 150
AT ML540ML
AT VM95E or ML
Hana EH
I am open to other suggestions as well 

Again, I am new at this so I appreciate your patience and your help. 

Theo.

theo71

I was bewildered why my MP-200 was sounding so thin and shrill, but as an experiment I put the 200 needle on my mp-150 cartridge and immediately the bass and dynamics were back. Not sure what's going on there, but my suspicion is that I bought the whole mp-200 with headshell and that nagaoka headshell was lighter than the standard Technics (so maybe Nags like heavier headshells?), I had to adjust the counter weight to compensate a tracking force of 1.8g. You gotta love Analog....

BTW, this whole conversation has got me researching affordable MC carts and probably the next one I would try is the Denon DL-301 mkii. I haven't heard one bad review of it and a couple vinyl rips sounded really good. Might also keep Denon in mind...

DS-Audio Optical cartridge and matching energizer. Try the entry level and thank me later.