Nagaoka mp-150 install rega planar 3 help

Hi folks new here hoping to get some help. I just purchased a rega planar 3 without cartridge and ended up going with nagaoka mp-150. The TT came with spacers on it from the previous cartridge. I wanted to know if this cartridge needs spacers or not for the tonearm which is the straight rb300.

thanks for your help

 

If you want to be extra picky you can install spacers, but no more than 4mm unless you want the lid to be useless.

You dont need to do that though, the Nagaokas have Elliptical styli and you most likely wont hear a difference between + - 1 degree. Just put the cart on with Baerwald alignment and enjoy.
After 6 months or so of regular use consider the 200 stylus or diamond retipping for a finer stylus. Then you might want to think about spacers.

 

My local Rega dealer do not recommend spacers, they said they could hear no difference.

 

Thanks guys!

 

Hi,
How does that cartridge sound ?
I have the Rega P2 with RB 220 tonearm & a 2mm spacer & I am thinking of getting the same Nagaoka MP-150

 

I have 2 (4mm) of spacers on my P3 with the MP-200. FWIW, Ian at HiViNyws on Youtube used a usb microscope and program to measure the SRA for the Nagaoka carts and said 3-4 spacers are required for perfect SRA. If there are spacers on there, I don't know why you would remove them. I played with the VTA on my Technics SL-1200 mk5 and noticed differences in the sound by moving up or down 2mm.

 

There wont be an audible difference on Elliptical styli.

 

So you're saying I underwent confirmation bias? I have observed noticeable changes in sound with 2-3mm of VTA +/- with big fat conicals. But I'll take your word for it.

 

Possibly, theoretically there should be a small difference with Elliptical if you go far enough. 2mm tone arm raising is less than 0.5 degrees SRA change I believe and that is something the stylus experiences across tiny warps, different record thicknesses, towards the record center and just over modulated passages where the cantilever will buck from the extra friction. If it were audible one should hear a constant shift in playback.
But now going to conicals, thats a completely round shape as Im sure you know. There may be microscoping changes in how the cantilever will move across a passage but the stylus contact should be identical no matter how you change the VTA.

I havnt experimented in depth with this, I just have a general setting. But it just doesnt make sense to me why it would make a difference, and others who have tried it dont experience a change, but hey, if someone shows me some hard evidence for it Ill go and perfect my VTA for every record as well.

 

Thanks, maybe someone else can chime in. All I know is that once I forgot to adjust the VTA when I swapped in my Shure SC35c and it was tale down because the previous cart was not very tall. The bass was so overwhelming and boomy, I couldn't stand it. I swapped in a new stylus and same thing. Once I figured it out, I raised the VTA from "1" to "4" on my Technics, and everything snapped back into place.