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Can a Nagaoka MP500 be converted to an MP700?

I am in Tokyo and considering whether to buy a new Nagaoka MP700 cartridge.  Then it occurred to me that the stylus assembly of the MP500 is replaceable as a separate item.  So I am wondering whether my MP500 can be effectively converted into an MP700 by simply replacing the JNP500 stylus with a JNP700 stylus. I do know that lesser models of the MP series can be upgraded by that approach.  I am just wondering whether the resulting chimeric cartridge would exhibit all the virtues of an MP700.  I realize not many of us are likely to have that information. But maybe....  Thanks for any response.

lewm
katzenjammer27's avatar
katzenjammer27
139 posts
 

just to put in here, if you don't have a phono stage that can either have enough gain or do justice to a higher end MM or MC low or high output cartridge, then you'll have another investment to make - which will probably be more than the cartridge...

lewm OP
14,669 posts
 

I think that goes without saying, Katzie. The best part is each of us can define for himself or herself whether the phono stage can “do justice”.

billstevenson
1,184 posts
 

Lewm, change of subject, how is Japan now?  I have not been back since 2016.  Wonderful country.  If I didn't have a wife and new daughter to come home to during in my Navy days, I would have swapped duty with a guy over there and probably stayed forever.  That was near the end of the Vietnam era for us, 1974.  

lewm OP
14,669 posts
 

Not enough room here to describe japan. Suffice to say it works.

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