Help me decide on my next cartridge (

Listen to millercarbon’s advice. A cheaper cartridge on a great table is a lot more satisfying in the long run. Because, unlike flavor of the month streaming, with vinyl, you are in it for the long haul. And you need to orient your thinking to see this as an investment in your future (audio) happiness. If I could advise my younger self, it would be to have bought the table I have today instead of going through a long an laborious path of upgrades. Then again, maybe every person needs to learn for themselves.

Thank you all for your input.

This actually went in a different direction than I had expected.  Now I’m interested in knowing what turntables you all would suggest?  I guess this puts me in the $1.5k ballpark.

SOTA

I would have recommended Nottingham Analogue, except that I see their turntables are truly insanely priced across the pond.  The Ace Spacedeck seems to be well over twice the £1500 UK price, at $4500.
That being the case, there are a plethora of choices available at or around $1500.  My suggestion would be to move up the Pro-ject ladder and look at the Classic, 2Experience and RPM-5.  All three are well built, competent decs and safe bets at that price point.

One member here mentioned to buy a NOS cart, i'm sceptical of that due to the suspension systems degradation over time. NOS carts should be bought with the understanding they may need a rebuild. heck any used cart for that mater.

@glennewdick How many NOS cartridge with bad suspension do you have (MM or MC), would you like to recall the brands ?

I have ZERO vintage cartridges with this problem, each NOS cartridge package i have opened myself was superb. I tried many. This problem does not exist for me, except for one brand i would never buy again -Technics cartridges. 

I would never rebuild any cartridge, this is a waste of money (imo), i tried and wasn't happy about result comparing them to the originals. 

A good cartridge must be fully original and in perfect condition.