Description
The Nagaoka MP-500 phono cartridge offers the highest musical and creative expression of the new MP series. It expertly extracts and reproduces with vivid, colorful and dimensional clarity what others miss. Experience the image solidity, detail resolution, and bass extension that made the Nagaoka MP-500 one of Stereophile’s Editors’ Top Picks For The Industry’s Best Products.2
The Nagaoka MP-500 features an exclusive super-rigid body for ultra low resonance and superlative fidelity with a superfine polished line contact diamond stylus. Its characteristics include a powerful samarium cobalt magnet, low-mass high-strength boron cantilever, carbon fiber reinforced plastic shoe and anti-ferro magnetic perm alloy shield casing.
■ MP series’s finest model
■ Scraped aluminum frame adopted
■ Output voltage: 3 mV (5 cm / SEC)
■ Frequency response: 20 Hz to 25 KHz
■ Channel separation: 27 dB (1 KHz)
■ Channel balance: 1.0 dB or less
■ Load resistance: 47 KΩ
■ Load capacity: 100 pF
■ Cantilever: boron
■ Needle tip: line contact · diamond
■ Appropriate stylus pressure: 1.3 ~ 1.8 g
■ Cartridge weight: 8 g
————– Reviews————–
‘Every key strike was vivid, precise and lifelike’
‘… very polished-sounding treble, while the MP-500’s superb tracking means there’s never a hint of sibilance or spit. I’d argue this pick-up offers a particularly sympathetic rendering of vocal sibilants, and up with the very best this side of a four-figure price tag…. instrumental and vocal detail is delivered with panache by the MP-500… the sound can really open up, front to back… a truly impressive sense of bass weight to its notes, even at moderate volume… the MP-500 was more than capable of ordering any number of performers with striking accuracy. Each given his or her own space within the soundstage… vivid, precise and lifelike… bass was rich solid and deeply resonant.’
Hi-Fi News | January 2023 Issue | December 2022
Reviews
reviewary.com – October 2, 2021
The MP-500 has a lot of everything; it’s tonally warm without going over the top, it has a slightly soft but strong and tuneful bass and a lovely, delicate and finely resolved treble. In the midband, this cartridge bristles with detail, yet this isn’t presented in a forensic or analytical way. Rather, it’s sweet and supple, with a really good rhythmic flow. There’s also a remarkable lack of surface noise.
https://reviewary.com/nagaoka-mp-500-review/
hifinews.com – Feb 20, 2023
Listening to the MP-500, it’s clear that its place in the turntable world is still very relevant. Many modern cartridges, MCs especially, have rising HF responses that some listeners find a little over the top or even fatiguing over a period. If this sounds like you, then Nagaoka’s MP-500 may be the answer to your prayers – it is a proper smoothie, with a captivating sense of musical ease.
Embedded in the hi-fi firmament for decades, Nagaoka’s MP-500 treads its own, very distinctive groove. Rather than attempting to barrage the listener with crashing detail and soaring treble, it retains a relaxed and somewhat mellow stance without losing rhythmic impact or musical insight. It remains both a superlative tracker and an enjoyable, if not positively alluring, vinyl companion.
https://www.hifinews.com/content/nagaoka-mp-500-cartridge
Stereonet – 13th November, 2020
Indeed, it’s actually a very moving coil-like moving magnet, yet still has the directness and ease of the latter – it’s a jack of all trades, and master of some. The MP-500 is a very clean and open sounding device then and has a wonderful delicacy too – a kind of translucence that’s completely untypical for a cartridge of this type. It homes right in on the recording, telling you how good or bad it is without so much as a moment’s thought – yet is never overly analytical. It’s tight, punchy, fast and insightful, yet tonally smooth with a touch of sweetness up top. In other words, it resembles a really good MC in many respects – without the need for a step-up amplifier or transformer.
Thumbs firmly aloft then, for this excellent pick-up cartridge; it’s surely the best of its type around – and certainly the finest moving magnet that I have heard. If you’re not a fan of moving coils, and/or don’t want to rejig your system to accommodate them, then this is surely as good as it gets.
https://www.stereonet.com/uk/reviews/nagaoka-mp500-cartridge-review
Wall of Sound – 28 Aug, 2015
if you’re primarily keen on acoustic music – jazz, folk, classical, etc. – this is a cartridge that I think will have few, if any peers in its price range. It gets the tonal colour of instruments and voices very right, and should give years of listening pleasure.
https://wallofsound.ca/audioreviews/review-the-formidable-nagaoka-mp-500-phono-cartridge/
