Cartridge recommendations

Check out the Soundsmith Otello or Carmen. Both are excellent choices. Huge vote for the Ortofon 2M blue, bronze or black depending on how much you decide to spend. Don’t overlook the Sumiko Blue Point. Still a decent value as well. That kind of investment will also properly adorn your table with a good Grado. The Audio Technica line is good too. Most important thing, listen to as many as you can in that price range as you can. Clearaudio may also be a good match as well at their lower pricepoints. Their offering can as well as other can climb up to 10k or more as you already have discovered. Good luck and happy listening🎶

A while back Michael Fremer did a cartridge shoot out and he posted files of each cartridge playing the same song.  You can read aboout the shootout and listen to the files here. You might consider listening to them blind to make your own unbiased pick of which of these sound the best. https://www.analogplanet.com/content/nine-cartridge-survey-produces-audible-results.

He gave the results of the poll and identified which cartridge belonged to which file here https://www.analogplanet.com/content/nine-cartridges-compared-reviewed-and-voting-results

I highly recommend the 2M Blue. It took a while to break in but after about 200-300 hours it went into another world. If you listen to Blues and run a tube amp you will truly enjoy the cartridge.

I picked up a NOS virtuoso ebony cartridge for about the money you mention above & it is outstanding for the money. Betters the LOMC's I've used prior to it. I can see how you could break them though. The stylus is certainly not protected. Kinda sticks out there just daring you to break it. If you don't mind going old school, check out Raul's large mm thread. There are a lot of great old mm or mi cartridges out there that you can still get high quality stylus's for. 

+1 for the Denon DL-301 mkII. Very smooth uncolored character with deep bass, and great focus when loaded at 475 ohms. And it’s in your price range.