Best cheapo Cartridge

"I believe anything under $1k is a cheap cartridge for audiophiles."

Couldn’t really disagree much more, unless "audiophiles" is used as a synonym for "people with delusions of grandeur and/or obsessive/compulsive disorder"

I’ve heard/auditioned a good number of Koetsu, Kisekis, Miyajimas and whatnot up through the years and frankly my ART9 gives them all a run for the money. Many of the former sacrifice precision and neutrality for obvious emphasis on midrange, "body" or whatever else the maker(s) subjectively consider desireable. If that’s what you’re after then that’s well and good, but to say it makes them "better" is simply folly of the highest order.

My current favourite by a very, very tiny degree is the Allnic Puritas, since it reproduces the timbre of stringed instruments and female voices better and more accurately than anything I’ve heard up until now. It’s a $5000 cartridge, but quite frankly I’d say it’s worth maybe a couple of hundred more than the ART9 purely in terms of its sonic qualities.

As far as I’m concerned an AT150MLX or Sa (no experience with the VM series yet) properly set up will provide sound quality equalling most MCs up to several times its price and take you most of the way to audiophile heaven. Provided, of course, that audiophile is used to mean what it actually means.

All in my opinion, with my (very good) hearing and in my system (or rather systems through the years).

"The statement that all new cartridges are good is false"

Has anyone actually made such a statement though?

"AT150MLX is not even near the old AT-ML170 or AT-ML180 series"

For that to be true the AT-ML170/180 would basically have to be the best cartridges ever made, by some margin, as to my ears the 150MLX/Sa are both reasonably close to being state of the art.  Maybe they are just that, as I've never heard either, but I kinda doubt it.  Or at least I doubt that it is anything even vaguely approaching an objective fact.

As far as reasonable & good cartridges go, the VM540 and the lower-end Nagaokas are no doubt among the better bets available today.

The MP200 and MP150 bodies are not the same though, the 200 being an upgraded design. A 200 stylus will no doubt be an upgrade, but the result won’t be an actual MP200.

Also, given the above it makes more sense to just upgrade to an MP200, as the stylus isn’t that much cheaper.

If I remember correctly (seldom a given), the 110 and 150 share a body, as do the 200 and 300, while the body of the 500 is further improved.