What do you get with more money?
Turntable: less bearing noise, less motor noise. Blacker background. Better dynamics.
Tonearm: better registration of the cartridge to the record. Ability to adjust cartridge for optimal performance and keep it that way.
Cartridge: the POTENTIAL to produce good to great sound IF and ONLY IF the above have already been done.
Set-up is the great leveller. A decent rig, well set up, will compete with a badly set up SOTA. I would spend the money on set-up books and tools, and money left over on record cleaning. A side benefit to record cleaning is that the stylus lasts longer. After 1000 hours, my higher end Koetsu shows minimal wear, probably because I clean with ultrasonics.
Turntable: less bearing noise, less motor noise. Blacker background. Better dynamics.
Tonearm: better registration of the cartridge to the record. Ability to adjust cartridge for optimal performance and keep it that way.
Cartridge: the POTENTIAL to produce good to great sound IF and ONLY IF the above have already been done.
Set-up is the great leveller. A decent rig, well set up, will compete with a badly set up SOTA. I would spend the money on set-up books and tools, and money left over on record cleaning. A side benefit to record cleaning is that the stylus lasts longer. After 1000 hours, my higher end Koetsu shows minimal wear, probably because I clean with ultrasonics.