So what would you recommend for my next upgrade?

I moved into a dedicated audio room ~ 1 year ago. Made my own sound panels using supplies from ATS Acoustics. I also tune by ear, as I agree, more fun. It is an ongoing process. Seems I have a tendency to over treat then remove treatment until I get it right.

No problem with the Blue Jeans. Based from what I have heard from others a good place to start. Cable upgrades and other tweeks can be added after you have dealt with room treatment and speaker placement.

I am hesitant to recommend a phono pre as I have only owned 3 recent ones. A Jolida JD-9, NAD PP3i, and now a Lounge. The Jolida was the best of the three and very flexible. I would look into Music Direct and Needle Doctor online. They have several models available. I think you would benefit from more gain than the NAD provides (36dB i believe). I also have the Bluepoint. The Bluepoint outputs 2.5 mV which is at the low end of the HOMC/MM range. Sumiko recommends a capacitive loading of 50 pF at 47K resistance.

Good luck on development of your listening room.

Have you considered the hand built Audiomods tone arms?

They start at around $750 + shipping + duty - so budget around $850-$900 for the Classic without the micrometer VTA

The base model has a locking VTA included which is easy to adjust at setup- if you don't make a habbit of changing cartridges frequently.

I have the Classic with a Denon DL 103 and a friend has the Series V with a Van den Hul Colibri - both arms perform extremely well and are very easy to install on Rega's

Jeff (Mr. Audiomods) now offers Eichmann Silver Bullet rca's on their silver continuous loom for superb details.

The bead-blast finish is very nice and with the gold plated counter weight providing a nice contrast.

It will elevate your Rega to a whole new level of performance - looks great too :-)

Drop Jeff a line to see if it is a good match to your cartridge - he's very responsive and knowledeable about cartridges and can tune the arm mass somewhat to your cartridge

Regards - Steve

So Mensch & Williewonka, thanks.

Looks like I've got some work/play to do here. I'm not sure if I can do justice to your suggestions until our construction project is done (90 days) but once that's in place, it will certainly be worth the effort.

Of course, my near term upgrade budget is a bit less than the sum of what you recommend. I assume that will always be the case . . . Oh well.

I really like your system, but I think it could use some warmth.. A tube phono preamp should get you a little of that. Try researching something used from Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, EAR, Quicksilver, Jolida. With your system I think you'll really enjoy a phono pre with tubes.