Direction on my next upgrade

"This patience is rewarded by getting you into Koetsu, Raven, Herron, Tekton territory. "
A Koetsu on a $500.00 turntable?
Are you kidding?

Mickey33_1
Thank you for the response. I should have clarified that I would upgrade and replace cartridge OR wait a few months and switch integrateds. I really love my Rogue and when I switched from my Onkyo to the Sphinx it was such a change. I found a ortofon bronze for a great price but have read reviews that some like the blue better. Have you heard the Bronze with your sphinx? I will eventually upgrade speakers. When I rebuilt these original EPI M150's it was another "ahha" moment. The speaker I was looking at before I rebuilt was the Wharfedale Linton Heritige. I love old school speakers and they have such a great look. Harbeth look great but not quite ready to drop $6000 on speakers yet. 

Thanks for your thoughts.

Cartridge is the key to a perfect sound on any turntable. Cartridges are copatible if you're not switching from superheavy tonearm to a lightweight tonearm. All modern tonearms are mostly mid mass and nearly all modern cartridges are mid compliance. No matter what turntable, you need a decent cartridge anyway. And a great cartridge is NOT the most expensive one. 

Chakster, that article is from 1994. I think you need to catch your breath, relax, get stoned and listen to music for the sheer enjoyment of it. 
Modern moving coil's moving systems have much lower effective mass than back then. That old high end peak is long gone. Phono amps have also made great strides. The very best cartridges are MC. Problem is they cost an arm and a leg. Having said this, about a month ago I got a wild hair and purchased a Charisma V2 from Elusive Disc (a REALLY great crew.) I have not had a MM cartridge for 30 odd years and this cartridge had uniformly great reviews. The Charisma has the same stylus and cantilever as the mighty (expensive) Goldfinger. While not the last word in detail it has an authority that only a few MC cartridges can match. If Rock and Jazz are your thing this is your cartridge. It will easily out perform any MC with step up device in its price range. Wild guess is you would have to spend $6K to beat it. I owned two 681EEs and the Charisma run circles around them. It also tracks better by a wide margin. So Chakster, saying modern MM cartridges can not compete with old ones is patently wrong. I would be willing to bet that there is no vintage MM cartridge that can compete with the Charisma never mind Grado and Soundsmith. They just did not have the materials science then that we do now. Just compare the size of the Charisma's diamond to that of the 681EE. It is easily 1/4 the size. The 681EE cantilever is a baseball bat in comparison.
Now maybe vintage cartridges are better than modern ones at the same price point, I can't say. But, the Charisma runs in another universe. It also costs $2000.00 which brings another subject to mind. If you can make a cartridge with the same cantilever and diamond as a $16,000 cartridge for $2000.00 why does that cartridge cost so much?? What is left is just magnets and wire. So the Goldfinger is gold. Add $2000.00 for the gold and the diamond. Where is the other $12,000? The answer is two different markets. You charge whatever that market will bear. MM buyers are obviously more frugal and they obviously get more for their money. So, what does that say about MC buyers? They are obviously willing to pay more for less. IMHO the best MC cartridge you can buy is the Ortofon Windfeld Ti price considered. Add a Clearaudio Charisma and you have the best of both worlds.