Kjl, if you don't know just how good your 17d2 is, you deserve to lose 2000$ trying to upgrade your system. Dynavectors are fast carts whose musical virtues have been recognized. maybe your problem lies in your tube phono stage which is having problems dealing with the 17d2's output of .23mv. if i had your money to spend, i'd look into the dyna PH 75 phono which is a steal at 500-600$.it matches the cart and will probably eat your existing phono section alive. then you'll rediscover just how tuneful a dynavector cartridge is. dyna is all about prat, which is a rare commodity in audio. few components regardless of price achieve the basic fundementals of prat. if it don't boogie, it ain't worth having!