Clueless Analog Newbie, Looking to Buy

Before I sold my vinyl I purchased a better tt to see if it would sound better than my old Technics SL-1500. It did not sound any better to me than the Technics.
I suggest that for your experiment you pick up an inexpensive tt on ebay, get a decent Audio Technica cartridge and give it a whirl. If you like what you hear you can upgrade, if not, you can resell the tt and won't lose much. Good luck.
Oh yeah, my vinyl collection was nearly 35 years old when I sold most of it. For me, vinyl isn't worth the hassle. People with thousands of $$ in playback facilities can argue and may be right. But that's more money than I care to invest in music playback. Good luck.

Some folks missed that incredibly important day of kindergarten where the teacher presented the idea that “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

There's the problem. Many of us are so old there was no Kindergarten when we began our formal education. Now I understand why we are so cranky.