Depends on a lot of factors. What are you trying to accomplish with your source? And how does the rest of your gear hold up. Cartridges are a rabbit hole all to themselves.
At the moment my turntable is much warmer than my DACs (see sig), and I intend to keep it that way. So I guess I would like to add more clarity and better instrument separation, without making it sound brighter.
The cartridge is the thing actually turning the bumps in the vinyl into a music signal, so, between some fairly low minimum and pretty astronomical maximum 'table price, it probably makes sense to spend more on the cartridge. Strictly speaking, the 'table's job is just to drag the bumps along the needle so the cartridge can explore them and turn them into electricity. It provides a level, stable, acoustically inert platform that rotates at a constant speed.
Of course, my own setup doesn't follow that logic, but that's down to laziness at least as much as anything else.
In your case: yes, very much so. And something I have never regretted even when advised otherwise (Dual 505-III with HO-MC, Linn Axis with Milltek Aurora, AT-OC9 and Karat DV17-Mk2, Pro-Ject Perspective with DV, ClearAudio Performance with Urushi). Downgrading always gave me severe withdrawal symptoms.
It all depends etc, and so on, bla bla.... Some gear are good as they are, and some allow for a lot better auxiliaries. Sometimes called scalability. Some gear scales great and seem to increase in quality as source, amplification or transducers get better, and others just are nice 'as is'. The better stuff just keeps on growing as you throw more money at it while others are just a money pit. What I found out over the years that gear that scales well is often simple but well engineered. The bad ones are complicated, over-engineered and over-compensated. Doing the right things right vs cutting corners. The talented show promise but might not start all that well while others work their butts off but soon stop growing.
There are many ideas about this and most are not going to give a strict opinion on the subject. My cartridge is only 1/4 of the cost of my turntable. That said could you put a $3000 cartridge on a 1200? Yes, and it would sound amazing. I have heard a $25k cartridge on a $10K table and stuff starts to get confusing in my opinion. It's maybe a complicated subject with a ton of convolution abound. At the moment I'm listening to $35 headphones with a pair of $2500 interconnects? It's a strange hobby which is always challenging the issues of common sense and mental stability. IMO
Such a classic and amazing cartridge, I had one at one time. A tracking legend and maybe a perfect example of how a slightly expensive cartridge could "fix" and upgrade many a turntable.
This is the Townshend Rock 7 turntable. It has a dampening trough that goes over the record which is filled with silicone. Then a paddle extension attached to the tonearm makes contact with this silicone through the record playback and dampens all the vibrations at the headshell source. Very cool and works splendidly
Read more here:
http://www.townshendaudio.com/the-rock-7/
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