If you had $12k / £10k to upgrade your analogue front-end...

@cainullah Is the internal phono stage good - I think so. I used to own McIntosh C2600 with an internal tube phono stage and preferred the 390. 
 

I don’t feel the need to upgrade the phono stage at this point - I appreciate the simplicity. 

reading some of the comments, I really started to wonder how much difference the phono stage will make. My understanding from what I am reading is that it yields the littlest gain in the chain (say: 5K on a phone stage, 5K on a TT vs. 2K phono stage, 8K TT - the latter being a much better allocation)

But that seems the opposite to what commenters say here.

Then, I am also clueless about the best allocation of the TT components and I don’t care as I have no plans to mess with them. Rega’s choices are fine for me (but it seems to be arm/cartridge/plinth, platter?)

I think what I am trying to say: it's not an Olympic event where winning is everything and pouring millions into Michael Phelps' diet will pay off by that .1 seconds at the end.

It's just a bunch of decent components that will (should) do their part for 1000s and not 10s of 1000s (unless you have a giant concert hall to work with).

I guess that goes against 98% of what's being argued here :)

"Rega P8 (I prefer it to the P10)"

why? I am curious

If you heard the P8 and P10 compared in a store demo you would almost certainly prefer the P10. It sounds bigger, more dramatic, more detailed and more dynamic. But if you live with the two for a while, it is another matter.

I owned both the RP8 and the RP10 at the same time, and then the P8 and P10. I ended up selling the RP10 and the P10 for the same reason. The ceramic platter gives the P10 a slightly brittle, slightly bright sound, and notes seem to be fore-shortened. There is a sense in which musical notes do not develop the full range of harmonics, and it sounds oddly artificial and fatiguing. This was with a range of cartridges, using the same phono stage. The P8 sounds smaller, less dramatic, less detailed - but more "normal", IMO more musical and engaging in the long term.

The arm on the P10 is better. I ended up putting a Cardas re-wired RB2000 on my P8, and with an external PSU instead of the Rega wall wart, and this to my ears sounds excellent.

But I should add that the P8 is not my main turntable, which is a Lenco-based PTP Solid 9 with Audio Origami PU7 arm.

@grislybutter 

i was once of the thought that a phono stage requires less of the budget. However - especially with MC’s they actually have the most difficult job in the amplification chain having to keep noise low and amplify the signal the most. I think that once you get to a certain level (transcription I’d say such as Linn LP12 - Roksan Xerxus - Rega RP 8 or 10) you really see a greater benefit. My analogy being that an average driver won’t make the best off an F1 car and won’t be much slower than an F1 driver - put them in an F1 car and the normal driver won’t even be able to get the brakes up to temperature. It’s a bit of an exponential ratio that can’t really be calculated in simple numbers. An average cartridge with a great phono stage would be far better than a great cartridge and an average phono stage