Your choice - TT, Arm, Stage, Cartridge - $5000 budget

"So the last piece of the puzzle is the cartridge."

whacky-you're  almost there. Hope that phono stage works well with whatever cart you decide on.

Cart selection is a drag. After using  a few popular MC carts, I've found a keeper that many here like-Audio Technica ART9. Under $1k and used by a few Prime owners.

If your new stage has 65-70dbs gain, a possibly more refined cart is the ART7 for even less $7-800, but only online. It has less output so you need a little more juice than what the ART 9 requires.55-60 DB's 

@tablejockey What do you like about the ART9? And what other carts did you try first?

The Whest phono stage can accommodate up to 72dbs gain I believe. So we should be good there. 

whacky-

I’ve used the following:
Sumiko Blackbird-overall nice sonics,but sometimes a little too much detail on the upper end.
Benz Micro Glider-too warm for my tastes,soft overall presentation discontinued now?
Audio Technica OC9III-great budget($500ish)MC, but shrill at the upper end, which was wearing.

These see traits may not be heard in other users systems/ears.

Check this thread out on the ART 9-
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/pani-new-art-9-up-and-running

The ART9 on my VPI Classic, thru my tubed phono, presents itself as a "goldilocks" cart. Not warm, not bright, just....
I would love to try several carts, but they are all $2K+!!
For the level of gear I have, the ART9 makes my system sing.

I wasn’t familiar with the Whest, after taking a peek at the website, looks like fine SS gear. I noticed they list the ART9 and AT50 as some of their test carts for their phono stages. That’s promising.

Your model has been superseded with the 40, but the specs are generally the same, so you have enough gain to consider an even lower output MC like the ART 7, which go for a couple hundred less.

Good luck weeding out the contenders

You can get a Technics SL-1200G for $3995.00
You can get a Cart and Phono stage for about $1500.00 A bit more but amazing.

I also have Luxman PD-171 with a tonearm and Koetsu cart. Store Demo at $5500.00
I also have VPi Prime with a fantastic Audio Research Phono Preamp and cart package for reasonable money.
626-966-6259.
www.sunnyaudiovideo.com