Tonearms

If your Rega is stock, I would place it roughly at the same level as your Black Cube: a good match. You can certainly get better arms and better phono stages--the trick being to maintain the same value for money, because the two pieces you do have are overachievers.

Have you considered tweaking your Rega? The Expressimo Heavy Weight and arm stub, and a Cardas wiring harness, can squeeze a lot more performance out of an RB300 at relatively low cost. You could then turn your attention to a cartridge or phono stage upgrade.

Origin Live and Incognito offere similar upgrades for the Rega arms but the Expressimo / Cardas one is what I have.

"I think a Graham 2.0 or 2.2, or top SME arm is going beyond what the Tarantella can do. You will have more tonearm than you do turntable."

Well put, Twl, if I may say so. I lived with just such an analog source for a few years way back in the seventies: a Decca London Export cartridge in an International arm (both good for their time) with a Connoisseur BD1 kit-built turntable in a homemade plinth. (Wry smiles all round--and the occasional grimace!)

The setup was quite dynamic, but the low-level detail that creates an image and gives instruments their lifelike quality was, well, obscure. And I will never forget the finickiness, the apparent fragility due to the fact that it picked up every single movement or vibration, and the vulnerability to footfalls.