I want to upgrade my Turntable to something heavier

@audphile1 is the only person who seems to have come up with a sensible approach.  Let's recap.  What is the problem?  The dogs are big and cause the turntable to mistrack.  The floors are spongy.  A new turntable, any new turntable, does not really address the problem.  Isolating the turntable effectively would do that.  There are two options:  Stiffen the floor, or use a wall mount shelf for the turntable (there are commercially available brackets for this purpose).  Everything else is not relevant until this core problem is addressed.

OP

Once you have solved vibration, (I favor wall shelf for you, and me if I could find a place) you want a more revealing cartridge.

My history is MM, finally MC (lomc with SUT to MM phono in my preamp), back to Vintage Used MM (for cantilevers unobtainable new today, and lighter tracking).

What phono stage do you have, or considering?

I highly recommend this moderately priced ($329) MM cartridge, it has a Boron rod cantilever, replaceable MicroLine stylus, 3.7 mv output signal strength.

https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/cartridges/type/moving-magnet/at-vm745xml

Their LOMC with boron rod cantilever and MicroLine stylus costs $649.

https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/cartridges/type/moving-coil/at-oc9xml

I have not heard it, however I have heard and liked many AT, including the prior AT33PTG/II version of this one which is getting up there in price these days ($899)

https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/cartridges/type/moving-coil/at33xmlb

One advantage of buying AT MC is their exchange program

https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/cartridges/styli-accessories/a-t-moving-coil-exchange-program

I sent mine in, they sold me a new one for just under half-price, if you think long, that actually lowers the cost of the 1st and 2nd one by 25% each, i.e. $675. each

Soundsmith has a re-build service

https://sound-smith.com/services/phono-cartridge-repair-restoration-tip-repair

Many here, including me, have Steve and Ray Leung re-build our MC cartridges

https://vasnyinc.com/

OTHERS____?

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Who will Mount; Align; Calibrate the Cartridge?

One advantage of MM is you can buy a TT with a Pre-Mounted Cartridge, and simply replace the stylus, preserving alignment of the cartridge body.

That limits your cartridge choices to what is offered, one whereby the stylus can be upgraded, 

I recommend the step up from Elliptical to an advanced stylus shape: any variation of Line Contact:

Line Contact / Linear Contact / Special Line Contact / Fine Line
Shibata
MicroRidge / MicroLine
Jico SAS

............................

and I favor Boron Rod cantilevers over aluminum if boron fits the budget. If not, I prefer the advanced stylus on aluminum, rather than dropping down to elliptical.

Elliptical can sound great, as can aluminum, however there are good reasons to move up.

https://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/audiophile-insights/analog-insights/phono-cartridge-stylus-shapes/

https://sound-smith.com/articles/how-choose-cartridge

 

 

 

 

Solidsteel wall mount

Solidsteel S3 rack

Rega wall mount

Have your phono stage no more than 1.5m from the table and use balanced cables from phono stage to preamp, not exceeding 2m in length…the shorter the better as that’s still a low signal. 

mahler, the short answer to your long question about balanced mode and hum is "yes". 

RB, I have never owned a Rega anything, but I do believe that the diligent end user could wire a cartridge in balanced mode even using a Rega TT and tonearm, once you know where the connection is between the tonearm or table ground and cartridge ground. Then sever it. You could ground the tonearm or TT separately, if necessary, once that is done. I did not mention it because I did not want to confuse the OP, but there ARE cartridges that cannot be wired in balanced mode, because they use a single common ground for both channels.  That goes for at least older Decca and Grado cartridges, maybe others.

Using "balanced cables" in the absence of balanced electronics does nothing except exhibit any differences between the cables themselves and whatever else you have been using in terms of SQ. But there are none of the noise benefits associated with balanced operation. Like I said before, you can have perfectly OK performance from a single-ended system with no annoying noise issues, too. And single-ended electronics tend to cost less than true balanced electronics, because of lower parts count, or at least they can be manufactured for lower cost.