Help me pick a phono, pre and cart

@jetson Well nobody else has said it, so if it's not too late, I will... I'd suggest giving more serious consideration to alternatives to a VPI. This is coming from someone who for a number of years owned a VPI TNT6HR(Basically the more discussed/reviewed HRX with the TNT plinth) and JMW12.7 arm, a combo of much higher performance than the VPIs you're considering and was happy with it at the time. My experience as leader of a local audio club (just a stone's throw from VPI!) let me listen to > a dozen VPIs including all variations of Classics and Primes in real world systems. In more cases than I'd care to detail, performance was mediocre. More than once users had mis-manufactured components with issues such as reversed internal wiring in mini DIN-to-RCA block. Others had speed variations that they didn't know were there until friends encouraged strobe testing. A number of users sold their VPIs and moved in varying directions. None ever regretted the change, nor moved back to VPI product. 
IMHO, day-to-day focus from Sheila & Harry were what led to the great reputation that VPI earned. Sheila was one helluva nice lady and passionate about getting things right for her customers. Harry is obviously a great engineer, and cut through much BS in the market(e.g. his stance on anti-skate on his arms). I don't know what involvement he has at this time, but anecdotes indicate that he is more-or-less in an advisory role and perhaps still doing some design. Other than a couple of longtime fanboys who usually jump in every thread with the same repeated comments(hello @Stringbean, lol), I don't get the sense that the majority of their large customer base with newer models is as thrilled as in the past. 
With your budget, you've got plenty of potential directions to go. If you land on a $2k phono stage, $1k cartridge & $1k for 2 cables, you've got about $6k for table and arm. You could consider for example:
- Vintage refurbished direct drive tables like Technics SP10mk2(about $3-4k totally refurbished) tougher to find top 70s-80s tables from Kenwood or Pioneer)
- New tables like the new DD Technics
- If you prefer other belt drive tables: Sota(also made in USA), Acoustic Solid or Avid. 
Not to rain anyone's parade, but their are lots of options out their that offer reliable quality that give IMHO superior performance at the price points discussed. Cheers,
Spencer

If in doubt, an excellent turntable with arm is the Technics SL1200G. Very non-resonant, speed is spot on, easy to set up.

@sbank and @atmasphere 
Its not too late at all. 
I won’t be making my purchases for a month or more. The only items I’m petty convinced on are the Herron and the ART9.
Thanks for the leads. 

Hmmm, according to this review, the Technics SL1300G needs some mods to bring out its potential. 

Not much. I would replace the platter pad, and if you want state of the art, the tone arm too (I use the Triplanar). Otherwise the ’table benefits from break in time and so seems to get better the more its used.

I’ve yet to hear a tube phono better solid state myself.

I have.

A lot depends on what you regard as important- IOW what’s ’better’. A lot of solid state guys cite noise as their number one concern, but once the noise floor is below that of the surface noise of the LP, the ear’s masking principle sees to it that you don’t hear it. But that might still be below -75db and that is doable with tubes. So that issue does not concern me- I don’t care if you lift the needle and can’t hear the phono noise unless you put your ear to the speaker drivers- when I’m listening to my stereo, the needle is on the record, not off of it :) To me its the musical presentation that counts.

The main thing for me is what distracts me from the music, and I think ticks and pops probably bother me most, followed closely by colorations, in particular, brightness. Both are easier to solve with tubes than solid state, so I find that a good tube phono section is easily better in this regard than most solid state; there are rare exceptions if the solid state designer was cognizant of the fact that the phono section contributes to ticks and pops if it has design flaws.