Good cartridge for playing rock

Grimace and Fap are on the mark. I have several shures including the Ultra 500. Rock is what it loves, does jazz well too. Tracks extremely well and with rock that is very important. Very solid dynamics.

I had a Shure V15VxMR and it sounded muddy this setup. I am not sure if the other Shures would sound the same.

If it sounded muddy, did you have the VTF too heavy? I had a Shure M97xe just prior to the AT and found it be somewhat sensitive to variations in tracking force. It gets poo-pooed here a lot as not being hi-fi enough, but I found it to be very pleasurable to listen too. I could see it being a good choice for pop/rock records.

But then if you were using a v-15 before an m97 would be a step down I suppose.

Why not try a Dynavector 10X5?? That cartridge rocks pretty dang swell to me...and it would be a bit cheeper than a DV-20X.

Nagaoka JT-555 - crazy, biting fire guitars, loves dense music.
Micro Acoustic 630/830. Very fast cartridge, scary dynamics.
Audio Technica AT155LC - no need to care or listen - music just flows into you.
Audio Technica AT20SS - to add body and wet dry and tipped recordings. Has soul.