Weak Link in Vinyl Playback

Hello owl9113!  It could be as simple as cartridge alignmnt in the tone arm. Has it been bumped or been in transit lately?  Has it always sounded thin?  Could the cartridge be a bit loose in the tone arm? It's worth a try and there's no charge to you if you fix it yourself. Good Luck & Happy Listening.

The OP should always run the Saga in active mode. Passive (no gain) modes in preamps tend to have a dull, lackluster sound. Next, the AT cartridge has high coil inductance. This makes it really susceptible to capacitance loading. I recommend changing to a moving coil (Denon, Hana) or moving iron (Grado, Nagaoka) cartridge - all low inductance.

@atmasphere Thanks for posting the link to the Hagermann discussion, good information. 

@elliottbnewcombjr Very helpful and to-the-point. 
@owl9113  Great thread you’ve got going here. I think both responders are offering helpful suggestions. I’ve been trying to solve some of the same issues. For vinyl, I have found the biggest difference is the cartridge itself, although, to backup Elliott’s concern, cartridge setup —the overhang, alignment, ‘azimuth’, the weight of the stylus at point-of-contact, stylus ‘rake’ angle, anti-skate, etc. can be difficult for a beginner to master. I bought a used turntable and new cartridge, in part, to get all that stuff set up correctly, because I was having a heck of a time doing it myself. It turned out my original cartridge was simply worn out. But dropping the needle on the ‘new’ turntable was such a relief: it sounded wonderful to my ears, then and now. 
Like Elliott, I found the best sound from a phono stage integrated into a line level device. It was better than the Elac phono amp I tried, more clarity, lower noise floor, which has been an issue for me on some of the Schiit gear I’ve used. I do have experience with the Freya+. I found it to be quite serviceable, and the tube stage adds 6 dB gain, which can be very helpful when a turntable is the source. I have about given up finding an analog vinyl setup that can match the signal from a decent digital disk player or DAC, but by fiddling with the controls, I manage to ‘get what I need’ from the records on the turntable. The cartridge and phonostage have so much work to do, there is really no fair comparison between the two (digital and analog) in my view. They are different animals and best understood on their own terms, in my opinion. I am sure, with your approach, you will get there. 

You need to spend much more money on the analog side, judging from the components being utilized. Your not going to tweak much out of what is there. I’d say back to the drawing board, sell it all off and start anew...that’s just me and my take on things, not trying to be rude and can understand that what you have may be all you can afford for now. The reality is analog play back is not cheap.

@audioguy85 I wasn’t planning on dumping much more than say ~$600 into it at the moment, about the price of the Freya preamp when I started the thread. I know I can sell off stuff to offset the cost of different equipment, but barring that at the moment, what would you say I could do in the price range to have the most measurable improvement?