If you had $12k / £10k to upgrade your analogue front-end...

I am just a tinkerer. I have two amps (one solid state, one tube), a few sets of speakers, and two turntables (and three cartridges for the 1200). I have some pretty different cartridges now - the Sumiko, Soundsmith, and Grado do not sound alike at all. My brain clearly needs things to work on and do. :) I'll live with one set up for a while and then swap a few or a bunch of things out. Thank god I don't have a bigger room! 

RE: NA Dais

I think so too. It does have a quirk, which is really a feature which contributes to its excellent sound. The motor is very, very, weak, about 1.8 W. You have to spin the table with your hand to start the platter moving - the motor is just strong enough to maintain rotation against bearing friction and stylus friction.

That's good news, for many reasons. It's cheaper to build a low power, high precision AC motor. It's easier to build a high precision motor controller for a weak AC motor. So you don't have to pay a big bill for R&D as well as manufacturing. And there's little power left over to vibrate the platter.

Also, the sub-platter is metal (for mass - actually moment of inertia) and the top platter is a thick slice of of  graphite, which NA calls a mat. Graphite is one of the best mates to vinyl, because its speed of sound is virtually the same as speed of sound for vinyl. So vibration in the record is transmitted optimally into the thick graphite and thence sunk into the massive metal subplatter, with little reflection or resonance.

These are empirical facts. Some here may dispute them on the grounds that their physics intuition says otherwise. Well, physics is a science, and science is based on experiment. This was an experiment, an experiment that worked.

Also, if you ever decide to DIY, the base is the weakest point of the turntable. An obvious way to improve the sound is to replace the base with one made of Panzerholz, preferably B25. The nice thing about that is that it's easily reversible if you don't like it. Also, it's best to place the Dais on a board of Panzerholz.

Good luck with it!

Rega, Thorens and Michell are great places to start. I am not sold on the Apheta cartridge. You certainly do not want to go cheaper. All three companies use very acceptable tonearms which will support any level of cartridge you care to think of accept perhaps Koetsu which requires a heavier arm. Something like the Ortofon Windfeld Ti,  the Lyra Kleos or the Soundsmith Sussurro would be nice. Go with a Sutherland phono stage. I would hope they would be less expensive across the pond.

@lohanimal good analogy, thank you. 

cannula:

I was suggesting starting with a new/different cartridge (only) fo a start.

A cartridge with a bit more detail and jump factor may be all you need.

Your TT is reviewed as being slightly smoother than typical non-suspended decks in its price range and above (not a bad thing) and your cartridge is reviewed as being somewhat "static" sounding (probably not a great match as you are looking for a more exciting sound).

It’s easier (less confusing) to change one thing @ a time and sometimes that one thing is all that’s needed.

Years ago I was looking @ new TT’s and CD decks because I was not happy with the bass/mid-bass of the one’s I’m still using.

The Thorens/SME had a hollow/reverb quality and the CAL (CD) was a bit thick/mushy.

During the course of the search I added a couple of after market custom shelves (ordered months before) to my rack for the source gear.

Doing so remedied what I disliked about the sound of both and I ended up keeping them (the improvement was so great on the CD deck that I ended up selling the DAC I was using as I discovered that with the new shelf I preferred the sound of the internal DAC).

Changing one thing (the shelf) was all that was necessary.

DeKay