Ya a fine line or shibata tip is a lot nicer, a better headshell upgrade will get you the very least of any in the upgrade department, on the other hand decent inter connect cables from the preamp to your power amp source will get you a good amount of improvement as the ones supplied will be very poor at best. Once your up and running try borrowing some if you can, taking some good ones for a test spin
can be an eye opener. You don't need $1000 cables but good $50 or plus ones really do produce good gains.
$2 chinese interconnects are a real bottle neck in the chain.