I reckon you would get a massive improvement from a cartridge upgrade!
Unfortunate the choice is very restricted compared to what it once was...
Personally I find MC cartridges to be vastly superior (
in general) to MM but there seems to be a bit of a lack of good cartridges in the £100 - £250 range these days... quite a few budget MM's around and plenty of mega bucks things from the likes of VDH, Lyra, Sumiko, Benz etc but a bit of a Hobsons choice in between. No budget(ish) "giant killers" like the AT OC-5 anymore.....
So, I can't give any specific recommendation but I would say that, IMHO, folks seem to be expecting far too much from cheapish MM's these days.... it often surprises me as to how high end a system is being used with say a AT95
It is a bit of a worry for me that my soon-to-be-unleashed-upon-the-world mods to the Cambridge Audio 640P (watch this space
) may not get used with cartridges capable of showing it's true abilities..... IE anyone who can afford a Lyra or some such will probably already have a very expensive phono stage and those wanting their 640p modding may only be using a budget cartridge anyway.....
Time will tell... I'm hoping that, on the other hand, it will sell by the bucket load to those who, by getting a very good phono stage cheap, can then use the saving to buy a really good cartridge!