Cartridge suggestions mmf-7.1

Has nothing to do with the table, yes you need a cart.... Go with an Ortofon for very powerful rock and roll, go with a Denon if you really want a super sweet and good natural more analog sound.. Both powerful carts on these tables and arms.

By the way a scout or rega would not in my opinion step up at all if you can setup a music hall table with care, maybe invest in a good Digital stylus gauge to really start tweaking the sound, oh and getting a 3" thick maple block to set you table on and level it will be a killer upgrade, along with dumping any thin cheesy felt table mat, get a Herbies way excellent mat, about 60 bucks, but will sound like a 600 dollar upgrade and get rid of your static!

Good luck

Yes I suggest the Denon 301 II from japan or the Denon 103r if you have a MC phonoamp capable of it, and as above I agree on the little big lower weight, I would go up to about 8 grams on anything, but you will get to a point that you will need to order the Heavyweight from Sumiko in california, the stock weight I believe is 60 grams, the heavyweight for that are is 90 grams and can take on bigger carts.. Like the ZU modded Denon for example. Ortofon Kontrapunkt series carts are really good on that table, but pretty expensive at over 1000 bucks for most models and they get a tad on the heavy side at 10.5 grams.

04rdking, Well you can only trust them so far, but again knowing they are calibrated right in the first place can eliminate the need for the gauge, but if you don't know where it lands from the beginning you could have issues.. Yeah you will get far better sound now finding you were way overweighted.