Thanks for the recommendations, as usual it's something of a gamble to choose what's next when funds and time are limited. Fuzztone's point w/ regards to getting the cartridge dialed in makes sense, but i opted for the wywire silver, (which is copper w/air dielectric and... no ground wire...hope it won't be necessary to add one). Dunno if there's any benefit to also using wywire silver on the phono stage output, but i did purchase a used pair of these interconnects prior to starting this post. The van den hul 501 has been run in the system for about 80 hours...some familiar recordings sound great, others seem like an odd remix, can't be sure if it's (at least in part) just a burn in issue. By all accounts there will be plenty of burn in ups and downs w/ the wywires.