which would you replace first?

Right back at you Chaz but no mid-fi and above cartridge will ever perform well in that arm.

Happy new year.

I am floored when you say the VPI scout/jmw9 is an underachiever...I'd rewire the arm with Nordost, but anytime I heard it, it was an overachiever

You need to hear more turntable/tonearm combinations or hear it with highly resolving components.

The arm is at best, pedestrian, but all VPI arms are mediocre in the context of other high end tonearms.

Audition some of the better stuff and you'll understand.

Audiofeil,

well put, but would you care to be more specific? Perhaps you could elaborate on where you think the VPI arms fall down relatively, without getting specific about what arms that you might carry.

I highly recommend a new phono stage. I had a Phonomena mated to a Denon DL-103R for about 6 months. The Phonomena was decent, but lacking in many important ways. I didn't realize this until I picked up a Wright WPP100c. That's when I discovered how magical a phono preamp could be. The comparison was like night and day. The Phonomena was politely quiet, but painfully two dimensional and lacked an ability to place music in space. The Wright was spacious and deep. Every time I swapped it back in, I was blown away by the sound stage. It was so much more three dimensional and realistic. The Phonomena was holding back my cartridge, and hence my whole analog system. If I were in your shoes, I'd look for an EAR 834P or any model of George Wright's phono stages.

There are some excellent recommendations in these forums:
Phono amp recommendations
best sub 1k phono stage?