Flute Recommendation on a Budget
I've been playing flute for about 7 years and I'm currently around Grade 5 level. I'm in the UK. I play in a youth orchestra, at school, for grade exams, and I practice almost every day. My current flute is a Buffet Crampon Cooper 6000 student flute that I got cheap off eBay as a "temporary" flute but ended up sticking with for about 4-5 years now.
Im starting to feel limited by my flute in terms of tone, projection, response, switching between registers and my flute in general feels sort of "chunky" and loose and less precise with fingering if that makes any sense. Keep in mind I have never had my flute professionally serviced (my flute teacher has fixed a few things here and there though).
My budget is realistically around £500 (I'm still in school and anything above that is quite difficult). I've been looking at Just Flutes but most flutes are very expensive except one pre-owned Trevor James model but it hasn't got a silver headjoint (an aspect I have been told it's important?).
I haven't looked properly on eBay yet but I'm a bit cautious buying from there as apparently a lot of flutes on there are fakes. I've found many Yamahas which look like they should be £1000+ priced at under £300 and it looks a bit sketchy, but I could be wrong.
I would appreciate some recommendations of websites / flutes I should look into. Or should I not get a new flute at all? I understand that trying flutes in store is ideal and I might get the opportunity to as well. Thank you!