the Grado headphones that I have had over the years. The Prestige Blue looks inviting. I have not mentioned them, because I thought I would discover other audio brands as to further my experience, but only for that reason. Bar none, Grado does have my loyalty for sure, in fact they started me on my quest for quality sound. So the OP has now a lot of different opinions to choose from. Let us know which one you bought and if you like it.

I think the compliance number listed for the OMB-10 at turntableneedles.com is incorrect, but I can't find the offical Ortofon chart at the moment to verify that. top end and high midrange was noticably restricted,high treble in particular sounded muffled and generally absent...detail levels were low and the lumpy bloated bass was devoid of any real articulation... For jazz and classical I could easily live the MP-200 and never feel the need to hear anything better. I’ve owned the MP-500 and don’t think it’s as good. I do like MP-300.Very hard to diagnose without knowing the state of your records. I would buy or borrow a record which is known to sound great and hear what happens then. Thanks for your advice and recommendations.But look at the compliance spec for the OM20...it's 25. And you're quite welcome. It's always great fun to help out in the analog room. But I think most people - me included - get cought to some YT vids and the praise for the Nagaoka MP-110 and the hype was there. Before the hype I didn't even know much about that brand Nagaoka, beides they make nice inner sleeves. Good advice, probably, to spend a little more and just get the Ortofon 2M Blue. But then, I wonder, what would the comparison be moving up to, say, the Nagaoka MP-150...etc. And then....getting into spending more money.

After proper alignment and setup, I set VTF to 1.9 and started listening to my N°1 favorite record for assessing sound: (Getz/Gilberto/Jobim).

The most annoying part about this is that these records that I am playing are NM to VG+. These are not old records with various amounts of wear and tear. Also, these are new pressings, that sound absolutely fine on the Ortofon. Could an alignment issue be the cause of this issue? I've aligned it to the best of my ability, so even if it's not perfect, it shouldn't be causing this much popping/sounds. If it were my system I would use my CBS STR100 to take sweep measurements at the phono preamp output, and graph the different loading options. I would then use whatever option gave me the flattest/most accurate response.

pk: Actually, I'd suggest neither the 2M Red, nor the MP110 or MP11 for the light arm of your T45C (nice table by the way - would also fit nicely to my hk825/hk870 pre-/power-amp combo...) - the former mostly for being too clunky for the slim headshell design and the latter for being rather clunky as well, but mainly for only moderate compliance. Anyway, sounds good to me for now, time to spend some time listening to good records instead of playing with dip switches ;) ;)For AT, well, I like the VM95SH just a bit more than the ML, but neither are a pimple on a Nag to my ears. Both are real nice, but they just can’t match a MP-110. We found its square casing easy to fit and align, and from the outset our sample gave a bright, immediate sound that would work well in pepping up a dull system.