Can a Nagaoka MP500 be converted to an MP700?

Whereas you have always liked the mp500, my advice is to buy an mp700 while you are in Japan.  From my research it is a worthwhile improvement.

I have a MP700. Not fully run in yet. Fast, open, tight, neutral, with a fine top end. Tracking is excellent at 1.4g in a 12" Jelco TK850L with a heavy headshell.

It easily beats out an Audio Technica VM750SH which has a less sophisticated brighter but brash top end and smaller presence. 700 is bigger sounding. 

Interesting how a lot of folk on this forum are able to make a definitive statements on something they’ve never heard. I guess when you are spending someone else’s money, it’s easy to throw out anything that comes into your head.

The 700 is radically different from the 500, much better top end, no droop.

Dover, good point about the frequency response. I read the same in a review. I would think/hope that the improvement in high end response would transfer with the stylus assembly, but maybe not if it’s a function of the generator. Another cartridge that interests me is the new Ortofon mentioned by Pindac. MX50, I think.

To some others: I never claimed, nor do i believe, that the Nagaoka cartridges are “best”.  Thanks for all the input(s). I saw the Phasemation pp200 at Yodobashi, too.

@lewm 

From an actual user of the MP700

Only a few days of listening in (on a Technics 1210G, VTF 1.4, VTA 0) but it's immediately obvious that this is not the MP-500: far greater resolution and extension, more neutral than warm, bigger soundstage, closer to a great modern MC (I'm comparing the MP-700 to the Phasemation PP-500 only because that's what I was last listening to) than another really good MI/MM. I'll try to update my impressions as the cart breaks in.