Is there usually a dramatic difference between $5k and $10k cartridges ?

@dwette +1 Thanks!

I was talking about vinyl records quality-control / sound-check, not cutting press-form process equipment.

@westcoastaudiophile So was I.

In the pressing plant they don't play LPs back. Instead, they send something called a 'test pressing' back to the producer; he has to sign off on it before the plant does the pressing run. He will be listening for weird ticks, distortion caused by over-cut, that sort of thing. Quite often the mastering engineer might take on this function although it depends on the production.

If the mastering engineer did their job properly as I outlined earlier, then the only variable will be if the plant introduced tick somewhere. Usually they don't. An addition test press usually goes to the artist who listens on whatever they have. Right there might be your concern but again the main thing is to make sure the LP is playable. 

This doesn't mean that your audiophile cables don't make them sound better than similar $5 per mile cables. They do.

@inna In the recording studio they don't. That is because the equipment in the studio is balanced and supports AES48, the balanced line standard, and all the connections are low impedance. That practice swamps noise and sonic artifacts of the cable caused by materials and the geometry of the cable.

Vinyl records produced/tested with “professional” grade carts, with focus on sound accuracy. 

@westcoastaudiophile Any LP mastering operation uses a cartridge for playback, but usually its nothing expensive. We used a Grado Gold in our operation. The reason isn't to winnow out the last detail, rather is so the engineer can test to see if the cut he made is track-able by a 'normal' pickup. Things like out-of-phase bass can knock the stylus out of the groove, grooves can be 'overcut', interfering with the groove next to it and so on.  That's all about making the cut playable. Sound quality otherwise has nothing to do with that and everything to do with how carefully the cutting stylus is set up, how much care is put into the cut (whether short cuts like compression are used) and the quality of the recording itself.

how do you choose cartridge that your arm will track perfectly ?

@inna Good tonearms are a trick!

You'll want to use a calculator like this one.

A good arm will have absolutely no slop between the cartridge mount and the base of the arm. Its very hard to do this with a jeweled bearing since over-tightening such a bearing could result in damage.

The arm tube should be damped in some manner so it can't resonate while the cartridge is tracking.

Its helpful to have the arm bearings in the same plane as the vinyl so the tracking pressure is constant with warp and bass modulation.

The arm must be very adjustable so settings can be dialed in precisely.

@inna @rauliruegas  and @lewm both make good points. I have two more to offer that are in the same vein:

1) the ability of the arm to properly track the cartridge is far more important than what cartridge you have.

2) there is something called the Veblen Effect where there is abnormal market behavior where consumers purchase the higher-priced goods whereas similar low-priced (but not identical) substitutes are available. It is caused either by the belief that higher price means higher quality, or by the desire for conspicuous consumption. 

The thing to keep in mind here is that a more expensive item might only be more expensive for that reason alone.  High end audio is driven be intention rather than price; this means that there is often a less expensive device that can perform and sound better for less (sometimes a lot less) money.