Help me pick a phono, pre and cart

If in doubt, an excellent turntable with arm is the Technics SL1200G. Very non-resonant, speed is spot on, easy to set up.

@sbank and @atmasphere 
Its not too late at all. 
I won’t be making my purchases for a month or more. The only items I’m petty convinced on are the Herron and the ART9.
Thanks for the leads. 

Hmmm, according to this review, the Technics SL1300G needs some mods to bring out its potential. 

Not much. I would replace the platter pad, and if you want state of the art, the tone arm too (I use the Triplanar). Otherwise the ’table benefits from break in time and so seems to get better the more its used.

I’ve yet to hear a tube phono better solid state myself.

I have.

A lot depends on what you regard as important- IOW what’s ’better’. A lot of solid state guys cite noise as their number one concern, but once the noise floor is below that of the surface noise of the LP, the ear’s masking principle sees to it that you don’t hear it. But that might still be below -75db and that is doable with tubes. So that issue does not concern me- I don’t care if you lift the needle and can’t hear the phono noise unless you put your ear to the speaker drivers- when I’m listening to my stereo, the needle is on the record, not off of it :) To me its the musical presentation that counts.

The main thing for me is what distracts me from the music, and I think ticks and pops probably bother me most, followed closely by colorations, in particular, brightness. Both are easier to solve with tubes than solid state, so I find that a good tube phono section is easily better in this regard than most solid state; there are rare exceptions if the solid state designer was cognizant of the fact that the phono section contributes to ticks and pops if it has design flaws.

SOOOO many suggestions.......   the only way to please yourself is to listen to this stuff and experience the result.  In New Jersey, go to AudioConnection and spend some time with John Rutan.