What are the most balanced relatively neutral cartridges at each price level ?

Interesting, mine is one of the original type and it is clearly Winfeld.  Anyway they are terrific.  Case in point, back to the subject of this thread, when I compared mine to the original AT1000 it would have come in the lesser of those two in sound quality, IMHO.

Around $3K (Level 2)

ZYX Ultimate Exceed Airy 

I’ve had this cartridge for 1yr now and it’s very neutral with a little air on top. I guess that’s why it’s called Ultimate Airy. It does live up to its name. It’s been my favorite cartridge for a long time.

Save your money. Look at the Audio-Technica AT-VM95ML or the Goldring E4. Fabulous sound from both. Not fancy but they do the job really nicely.

I consider the Dynavector house sound to be neutral, and I moved from a 10X5 to 20XH, to a XX-2.  Not too warm, not too bright.  

Frankly I don’t see anything wrong with using digital references.  Master dubs on the other hand I have a problem with.  Where did they come from?  What mics were used?  How many mics?  What kind of a mixing console?  Who was the engineer?  It is hard to know some times.  Might be good, might not

I’m not understanding this. How or why is "What mics were used?", "mixing console?", etc. an issue for tape recorded music but not for digital recording?  (Whether from original digital recording or digital copy of analog recording.)