Your choice - TT, Arm, Stage, Cartridge - $5000 budget

This is the quote from Whest Audio website. The first introductory phrase. "  Welcome to the Whest Audio website. Here is the place of the very best phono stages in the world."
I'll refrain from expessing my opinion of this in a more open fashion than I just did.
Why did you decide to go with solid state phono, anyway? You are going to thin out the sound and lose some details.

A Groove phono stage for $1500??? That’s pretty impressive. I have the 3rd generation Microgroove Plus and it’s quite good. I previously had a Convergent SL-Reference Mk III and think the Groove quite close to it, although the Convergent line stages do the tiniest dynamic inflections a bit finer than the Evans (Groove) line stage.

As for the VPI tables sounding "warm"? Not my experience. I had a HW-19 back in the 90s, along with a Versa Dynamics 2.3, and THAT turntable (the VPI, NOT the Versa) was warm. The Classic I bought 3 years ago was ANYthing but "warm." I eventually sold it for that very reason. It is extremely ’neutral,’ but not dark like earlier VPIs. Meaning, in the lower part of the spectrum, it doesn’t have the ’weight’ I’m used to with older VPIs. Perhaps it was the Clearaudio Stradivarius I had on it. That was NOT a combination I liked. I understand VPI likes Dynavectors (Harry Weisfeld himself - when I told him I had the Classic - enthusiastically agreed the two (VPI/Dynavector) sound great together). The Dynavector is warm in the mid bass through lower midrange - the very regions where the Classic sounds "lean." Male voices, particularly Black male voices, have that full throatiness to them. Which means the lower midrange is pretty spot on. Even Sinatra’s tone is quite nice with the Dynavector. That’s why the two are synergistic: the Dynavector adds the missing "body." I only WISH the Classic WAS warm, because I’d have kept it. I’m not one for ’skeletal’-sounding turntables, having lived with a Sota Star Sapphire, then a Goldmund Studio/T3F, then the Versa Dynamics 2.3 (still in California), then the Nottingham Horizon and a Teres and a Rega Planar 3 and then the Classic. I think I can tell warm from skeletal, and I wouldn’t call the VPI Classic ’warm,’ as I already said.
In any case, the Groove is a steal for that price.
But how do you like the phono stage you bought? Is IT ’warm’? And what cartridge did you end up with?

I’ll go against the grain here and suggest you look for a solid state phono stage.

You already have plenty of tubes in your chain, and $1,000 - $1,200 will go a LOT farther on a used S/S phono stage than a tubed one. It is much more expensive to make a quiet tubed phono stage than a s/s one.

There a lots of contenders to choose from: Rega Aria, Blue Circle, Whest, Ayre, Lehmann, Graham Slee, etc. Just look for the best deal you can find.

Edit: Oops! I just noticed you bought a Whest phono stage. Good call! ;^)

In terms of carts, have you considered a moving iron, like the London Decca Super Gold? They are super detailed and behave like an MM.

"So the last piece of the puzzle is the cartridge."

whacky-you're  almost there. Hope that phono stage works well with whatever cart you decide on.

Cart selection is a drag. After using  a few popular MC carts, I've found a keeper that many here like-Audio Technica ART9. Under $1k and used by a few Prime owners.

If your new stage has 65-70dbs gain, a possibly more refined cart is the ART7 for even less $7-800, but only online. It has less output so you need a little more juice than what the ART 9 requires.55-60 DB's 

@tablejockey What do you like about the ART9? And what other carts did you try first?

The Whest phono stage can accommodate up to 72dbs gain I believe. So we should be good there.