Anybody with an expensive TT try this????

I believe it goes both ways. I have tried cartridges on my turntable that range in price from a few dollars, like $10-12 on eBay, to $10,000. What I noticed is that some really inexpensive cartridges which sound great on a lesser turntable might sound awful on a good turntable that sells at the high-end of the market. The ADC TRX series of cartridges come to mind. On an inexpensive turntable, say around a few hundred dollars, they sound pretty good, but on a turntable where manufacturing cost is no object they are overly bright, harsh and strident. You would not stay in the room through a single track. On the otherhand, the Technics 205C-IIX, a moving magnet cartridge that I bought NOS for $200, stands tall among moving coils that cost thousands, at least on my turntable. That cartridge sounded not bad, but average on an inexpensive turntable. I could give you a lot of examples, but I have the suspicion that when better equipment is involved the turntable, the tonearm, the phonostage and the wire come into play in a very big way that you don't see in most environments where more commonplace setups are found. I would even go as far as to say listening for these differences can be an indicator of sorts to determine the quality of a better turntable because such a turntable should be musical and revealing enough to blatantly show the weaknesses or the strengths of a given cartridge.

So, my take is that it is a case where you mileage will most certainly vary, rather than may vary.

Win
Saskia Turntables

Depends, to a large extent, on the tonearm.

A $50 cartridge on a terrific tonearm will sound better than a $500 cartridge on a poor tonearm.

IMO

I have a ClearAudio Victory H cartridge, $2K in its new day, in a Aries/10.5/SDS etc. About two years ago I installed a Shure 97 NOS in the rig to see exactly what the difference would be. I purchased the 97 almost twenty years ago for $35. Was there $1,965 of difference? No. Maybe I need a $20,000 table to make the ClearAudio sound $2K in difference. Could be the ClearAudio is really not that much better and I need a $5K cartridge. I don't think I will go there.

My personal experiments match Audiofeil's. I've played cartridges from $150 to $12,000 on my $11,000 rig, and carts from $75 to $2,000 on various $300-1000 rigs.

At least one cheap cart (ADC XLM MkII) sounds miles better on the top rig than on any lesser rig. It has its limits, but it shouts no weaknesses. This would make a killer combo for a dance party. Really fun to listen to, though perhaps not critically.

OTOH, the $1,500-2,000 carts (Shelter 901, ZYX Airy 2) on one cheap rig were just awful. Every weakness and noise from the lower quality table and arm were spotlighted. I couldn't take them off fast enough. Carts as revealing as these (or more so) need a good quality table and arm.

This isn't to deny experiences like Mosin's. If a cheap cartridge is flawed, you might get enjoyable performance on (some) cheap rigs that happen to mask those flaws. Better performing rigs won't do that and the cartridge will sound like the trash it is. ;-) Even the fairly costly Shelter 901 can sound trashy in a really good system. It leaks so much energy into a tonearm that it needs a really damp sounding arm, which carries its own sonic penalties. As usual, it comes down to effective component matching.

Are $1K+ carts worth it. That's a personal decision, there's no universal answer. Can you afford it? Do you have the system to take advantage of what it can do? Do your ears and musical preferences actually care about what it can do? Are you prepared to do the constant extra work that high level performance requires (there's no plug-n-play at higher levels of vinyl playback). The answers will differ for each of us.

For me there's no question: I'd buy my reference cartridge again in a heartbeat (in fact, I've done so twice - I'm on #3). Since it's now discontinued I'll probably even buy a backup before they're gone. But I wouldn't bother if my table, arm and entire system couldn't provide the solid platform, steady speed, low noise- and sound-floor and uncolored, unrestricted dynamics that a top level cartridge needs to play its best.

For you, it's up to you.

Commcat:I could not disagree with you more. An expensive rig will bring out more information using a cheap cartridge then the reverse.A cheapo TT with all its faults cannot bring out the best in any cartridge.