I want to upgrade my Turntable to something heavier

@alahankbear 

Pro-Ject X8

Thorens TD-1500

Both lovely turntables at your price point. The Thorens uses an Ortofon 2M Bronze which has high-quality fine line stylus that is user replaceable. The Pro-ject, a Sumiko Blue Point No. 3 High Output Phono Cartridge with a biradial elliptical that is nonuser replaceable but there are discounted retip services available depending on where you purchase the turntable. You do have the option of purchasing the Pro-ject without a cartridge and choosing one you’re preferential to.

@lewm 

The turntable itself does not give a hoot whether the cartridge is running in balanced mode or single-ended mode.  So you can choose any turntable without regard to that issue

Rega seems to be an exception, because Rega grounds the table through the left channel -ve connection!  DS Audio cartridges are another exception, because they use right and left -ve wires to carry DC to power the diodes in the optical cartridges.

But in general, balanced is preferred, if supported by downstream components, because of common-mode noise rejection.

Ironically, although the rest of my system supports balanced operation, my new SoulNote phono stage provides fully balanced support for Moving Coil (MC) cartridges, but not for balanced Moving Magnet (MM) or optical (DS Audio).  It has front-panel switching between optical and MC or MM, but not between MC and MM.  I reckon this is because Low Output Moving Coil benefits most from balanced operation because low voltages are the most susceptible to noise.

@alahankbear 

I would highly recommend considering the Holbo air-bearing system although it may be just outside your price range.

The total mass of the deck is 12-kg, excluding the power and air supply unit.  Of this, the platter is a hefty 5-kg.

I decided to put mine on a pretty solid platform from the get-go.  Starting with a SolidSteel S2 rack, I added two slabs of sandstone which cost about $100, sitting on eight Sorbothane hemispheres (roughly another $100) for about 70-kg all-up mass excluding the rack.

My German Shepherds are no more, but I think the Holbo would have won!

If your floors are springy and you have footfall and vibration issues your best (only) answer is a wall mount shelf. Upgrading your turntable to a heavier model will do almost nothing to solve your problem. A wall mount shelf is also an answer to the dog problem. When my son was young I had my table on a wall shelf at eye level. He could not reach it and as you age into retirement you will love not bending over to flip the side or tweak your setup. All phono signals are balanced and so benefit from truly balanced downstream connections and components so do that as well.

I’m primarily a digital listener but I’m curious about the phono balanced issue.  My phono pre amp isn’t balanced and it’s quiet and I like it, having spun a few Laps yesterday for the first time in weeks.  However years ago I had a ground loop hum that wouldn’t go away unless I unplugged the analog system.  I sold off the analog and the new owner who had been warned about the issue had no problems.  It never happened with my current setup and my current phono preamp isn’t balanced balanced.  Are balanced phono preamps less likely to have issues like this?