Help me pick a phono, pre and cart

@jetson I have heard that VPI is willing to help check out their products.  

@rauliruegas I went back to old gmails to try to remember what year it was that you visited me, & heard my Atma-Sphere MA1 mkII amps and MP-3(Ralph’s most affordable model) preamp/phonopreamp. The preamp was fitted with my personal choices of vintage tubes, which ones exactly escapes my memory at this point. Another variable worth noting is you may recall is that my house was located about 1000ft. from the largest radio tower in my state, and it wreaked havoc on my phono playback at times with a wide variety of phono stages of all design types. 
My gmail goes back to 2008 and the oldest messages we exchanged referenced your visit earlier. So what you heard at my place was 7-8 year old designs back 11 or more years ago. In other words gear designed by @atmasphere about 20 years ago. IME, not a fair comparison to what he offers today. We also listened through my Merlin speakers which while arguably quite revealing in the mids & treble, lack the ability to reproduce very low bass at all. To use that listening session as a testament to the detriment of tube gear or @atmasphere ’s gear in particular just doesn’t hold water IMHO.
@rauliruegas, unless it’s to suggest additional specific ss phono stages for @jetson in his budget, I’d suggest resisting the temptation to reply with more statements about merit of SS vs. tube gear or at least respect @jetson’s kindly worded request for you to take that conversation to a thread about SS vs. tube phono stages or gear in general. In a free world you have the choice to build bridges or burn them. With all due respect, I suggest you do the former.
As an aside, I'm about to go to a Nagra SS battery-powered phono stage in my system. FWIW, my experience is that both design types can be great and it's more about the individual design than just "tube vs. ss". Cheers,
Spencer

@jetson Thought I read someone suggesting to you a VPI TNT V HR on one of the other sites. I just read that ad and want to caution you about it. First, it's not a HR. HR denotes that instead of a separate armboard drilled/screwed into the plinth, that the tonearm attaches directly to the plinth, theoretically eliminating potential additional resonances from the armboard. 
Second the JMW arm is a really early version. I owned a JMW12.6 which similarly had a multi-piece base that attached to the plinth. The pieces of the base have no markings or other guides that will allow you to optimize the placement on the plinth. If you ever need to disassemble the arm(e.g. when I changed the DIN connection box from RCA to a balanced version) there is no way to ensure proper reassembly. Harry realized this and changed to a one piece tonearm base in the 12.7 version of the JMW, a significant improvement.  IMHO that table is far from a bargain, and one I wouldn't want to one even at a better price. Cheers,
Spencer

@sbank and @jetson 

My opinion....

(I was the one making the suggestion on the "other forum."))

I have that early version of the JMW-12.  Nothing at all wrong with it from either a performance or maintenance perspective.  Even have two arm wands.  My Ariea Extended is in the original configuration except for the feet (now three Stillpoint cones instead of the VPI sandals) and placing it on a maple butcher block board.  It's an easy table to set up and when it's set up correctly, on those Stillpoint cones, it is a spectacular performer.  

More opinion....

Without hearing the EXACT table under consideration, I would suggest that at $3500, it is the single best bargain in turntables currently available.  Even if it is not a textbook Hot Rod, it's still a great table priced maybe $1500 below similar models.

And yet another boring opinion....

@sbank   I hear very clearly your concerns.  If the table is kept in its current configuration, it's my opinion that it will be a great performer.  Even if it is converted to balanced outputs from the tonearm, that's a matter of a small box swap-out.  Not sure how Mat / Harry suggests making that change.  

@bpoletti Yes, you'd think "a small box swap-out" is a simple thing, but the problem is that to change it out you need to remove the entire tonearm. The pieces that make up the base two pieces of the "dog leg", the VTA tower, etc. all separate. After swapping the rectangle box, when you then align the base pieces they need to be at the exact same angle as before, but there is no way to guarantee the correct geometry. And guessing or going by sight alone will cause serious detriment to the ability of the cartridge to track correctly and do its job.
When I called Harry after buying the XLR "little box" asking for direction on how to reassemble the arm and pointing out the lack of markings etc. to him, he wowed me by telling me to send back the arm and that he would replace it with the then-new 12.7 at zero cost! He even told me to keep the old arm-wand and use it as a spare. That was great service. That VPI is no more. 
A friend of mine is a professional musician for one of the top 5 orchestras in the US. He bought a Prime directly from VPI and for months knowing exactly what he should be hearing on most classical recordings, he had a strange polarity problem that resulted in weird soundstage effects like instruments in the wrong place and no depth. After checking & rechecking his cabling, turntable setup etc. and having a couple of friends do the same, they all concluded that the table was hooked up right. He called VPI's service mgr., (Mark?), and then Mat. They both blamed his mis-wiring the cartridge connections which was triple-checked, then the phono stage. So he sent that in for service, which of course wasn't needed.
After waiting for phono stage return, at the end of his rope with no solution in sight, I brought another whole analog setup over and switched out everything one at a time to debug it all. At the end of the day 3 of us concluded that the "little Din-RCA box" on his VPI arm was improperly wired inside the box. Mat laughed at the suggestion, but eventually agreed to have it sent back. Weeks later, a correctly wired box showed up and everything finally worked as it should. After that whole fiasco, I can't recommend VPI to anyone anymore. There are too many great products & great companies with stellar support to accept anything else. Yes, VPI has it's fans, but all is not wine & song. At least no one is suggesting that @jetson order one from advertised "#1 VPI dealer" Soundstage Direct. Cheers,
Spencer