Turntable upgrade, tweaks, or stay put?

Thanks again for all the good ideas. I did borrow my father's old scoutmaster. It hasn't been used for most of 4 years. It was professionally set up. I put it in my system and put on a record that I know well, and it sounded very distorted. Since I don't think the setup has been changed, I am assuming this is a problem with the cartridge (grado reference master). Both channels play but with severe distortion. I don't remember if this was a problem before in my Dad's system; it could have been and he never got it fixed. Should I get a new cartridge? Seems I can't catch a break here! Also, I think the KW500 phono stage should work for this cartridge. It was fine with the Eroica.

The Grado has twice the output of the Eroica. Does the MF have gain & other adjustments?

So I gave the scoutmaster a once-over, and, when viewed with magnification, it appears that the tip on the stylus must have come off at some point. That must be the cause of the distortion! So, now does anyone have recommendations for a good cartridge for the scoutmaster? just stick with a replacement Grado, or something different? Thanks.

If you are considering tweaks, one I made on my tt was adding the
Audiomods Classic arm - with the beadblast finish and gold counterweight
and the micrometer VTA (which you only really need if you change carts a
lot)

A friend has an Audiomods Series 5 on a technics TT and is using it with a
Van den Hul Colibri cartridge and it sounds amazing

At the other end of the spectrum - I use it with the Dennon dl103 - it makes
that cartridge sound amazing also, but not quite as good as the Colibri :-)

It's primarily for Rega tt's but Jeff at Audiomods is able to customize to
some extent. He makes a mounting plate for the technics 1200/1200 direct
drive tt's, so he might have one for the mmf7

Drop him an email (with TT/cartridge details) asking if it is possible -

jeff@audiomods.co.uk

He's very responsive and will answer any questions.

His work is very high quality and his arms bring out details often left behind

He also offer Eichman Silver Bullet RCA's if you go with the one piece
harness (highly recommended) which improve dynamics, fidelity and
sound stage - well worth it.

Regards

Scoutmaster is a good table.... put in a Dyna, Benz, Soundsmith, Ortofon (they all sound different) and smile.