For $3500 on the used market you should be able to buy a great rig. Whatever you buy, consider that the table itself will have the greatest impact on sound quality, then the arm and last, the cartridge. It has been my philosophy to put most of the money there and worry about upgrading the arm and cartridge later (and tweaks, gimmicks etc, later yet).
A few other tips:
1. be careful with used cartridges.
2. where the phono stage goes in the pecking order is difficult to say. I bought a nice phono stage to use with a low output mc cartridge. But my integrated amp has a mm phono stage and, in retrospect, I would have done better to use that with a decent mm or high output mc cartridge and put the money into the table. Oh well. Others may disagree, but I believe that the pecking order should be: table, arm, phono stage, cartridge.
3. Tweaks: don't waste money on expensive alignment tools - you can sometimes get them free on the web. Demagnetizers, clamps, etc can wait. But a good test record (Cardas makes one) is very useful.
good luck!
A few other tips:
1. be careful with used cartridges.
2. where the phono stage goes in the pecking order is difficult to say. I bought a nice phono stage to use with a low output mc cartridge. But my integrated amp has a mm phono stage and, in retrospect, I would have done better to use that with a decent mm or high output mc cartridge and put the money into the table. Oh well. Others may disagree, but I believe that the pecking order should be: table, arm, phono stage, cartridge.
3. Tweaks: don't waste money on expensive alignment tools - you can sometimes get them free on the web. Demagnetizers, clamps, etc can wait. But a good test record (Cardas makes one) is very useful.
good luck!