effect of new cartridge

Generally speaking, you'll want to have your transducers be complimentary to each other as a start and cartridges can make a huge difference. Not knowing what you feel you may be missing, it's difficult to speculate on what might be an improvement for you. Are you missing bottom end, is the sound harsh, etc?

fair question---just playing the "numbers" game in that i'm thinking a cartridge upgrade with a more expensive cartridge would help overall

Hey-I could be wrong--it does sound good now but not being super experienced with analog,I'm not sure what really good sounds like.
But you make a fair point

It's a decent table; how long have you had it?

Effischer has the right approach; what are you lacking from your listening
experience?
If you haven't had this rig very long and since you're new to vinyl, you should
get to know how it mates with your system. By this I mean many hours of
listening before making changes...how are the highs, is the bass detailed,
the mids smooth, etc.

You can do better with the cartridge, but sometimes changing the
phonostage is the better upgrade than changing the cart. You need to know
what sonics you seek from your analogue setup.

I had a MMF 5 and I was amazed at the improvement a Herbie's mat made. I don't usually fool around with changing mats and stuff, but on that tt, the mat made a huge improvement. Much deeper, tuneful bass and general smoothness. Just buy one and try it before you do anything. If you don't like it, Herbie will take it back. If you feel you have to buy a cartridge, go for the Goldring Eroica high-output MC. Very nice upgrade and it will work well in the arm you have. That's as far as I would go with that tt. Good luck.