Cartridge upgrade

@rfauto You have a Manley Chinook and can play any cartridge MM, MI or MC without a step up transformer. You are cleared for any cartridge except perhaps the lowest output MCs with outputs below 0.2mv. You could use them but won't have the greatest signal to noise ratio. Moving Iron Cartridges like the Soundsmiths and Grados have one major advantage over other cartridges and that is a much lower effective mass. The moving system of the cartridge is much lighter and can follow the groove more accurately. I would take the Voice over any MC cartridge below the price of $6000. Then there is Soundsmith's customer service and relatively inexpensive rebuild prices. 

Find a gently used Soundsmith cartridge, i got a Carmen II 5 years ago and just had it rebuilt and I'm still way under the price a new one would cost. Soundsmith rebuilds their cartridges for around 20% the cost of a new one and they sound fantastic.

You will get a great sonic improvement by investing $3.4K in either the turntable or cartridge. If you are looking long termed, I would start with the turntable ($5K would get you up another level)… but you easily could get a bigger incremental improvement swapping cartridges. Do both, even better.

Cartridge 1st!

You will definitely hear cartridge differences on a most basic TT, think 'preferred' rather than better, and you may or may not hear differences between arms and/or spinners.

You can always move a cartridge to a 'better' arm or table later.

I did not know that the Voice cost as much as $3000.  Since that is so, I could not recommend it as a cost-saving alternative to the Kiseki.  Albeit, taken by itself, I take Mijostyn's word for its excellence. (I never heard one.)  To the OP, if Kiseki is pulling out of the US market, that might mean their cartridges are not selling well here for any one of a number of reasons.  But keep in mind, Kiseki of today is not the same as vintage Kiseki.  I also omitted to mention Hana; they also make excellent modestly priced cartridges.  And my other main point is that I do not at all subscribe to the idea that there is any sort of linear correlation between price of a cartridge and sonic excellence.

Mijo, Yes, I am still listening to the MP500 but switching back and forth with some others.