Best cartridge under $1500.

You can buy a used Grace F9 body from a guy on Ebay. He stands behind what he ships so there are no worries that you will get a quality cart. Then buy the SoundSmith Ruby OCL F9 stylus replacement. You will have a wonderful, fast, detailed cart for about $1200. It'll blow away the 2M Black.

I have an original grace and I agree with that statement.  They do sound great.

+1 on the Decca London Super Gold Moving Iron cartridge.

It does exactly what you’re looking for.

@leonardcooper 

You can buy a used Grace F9 body from a guy on Ebay. He stands behind what he ships so there are no worries that you will get a quality cart. Then buy the SoundSmith Ruby OCL F9 stylus replacement. You will have a wonderful, fast, detailed cart for about $1200. It'll blow away the 2M Black.

For about $1200 it's better to buy NOS stock Grace F-14 with original Grace BR/MR (Boron Cantilever, Micro Ridge stylus). The F14 is way superior to the F9, especially if the generator is LC-OFC. Remember that GRACE is a High Compliance cartridge in its original form, the SoundSmith is not a high compliance at all. But what is definitely superior to the SoundSmith Ruby is the genuine Grace hollow pipe Boron Cantilever with Nude Micro Ridge Stylus tip with very low mass. And if it's too expensive, then genuine Beryllium cantilever from Grace is also amazing. I have them all. One of my favorite Grace is LEVEL II (gold/black color), but the sellers often fooling people offering F8 cartridges and F8 stily under LEVEL II name. Grace LEVEL II styli (plastic holders) are not rounded shape and the Grace LEVEL II cartridge body is GOLD. It will be very hard to find any MM cartridge better than F-14 LC-OFC or LEVEL II with genuine styli. Actually the second generation of the most advanced Grace styli are not rounded shape (i mean plastic holder) as their first  generation of f8 and f9. My advice is to search for fully original F14 LC-OFC and LEVEL II BR/MR if the budget is up to $1200. 

You don't nee the Grace generator to enjoy the SoundSmith cantilever/tip, because he's got his own MI cartridges for the same price and i'm pretty sure his cartridges are very good! 

If someone would like to buy and send my broken AT-ML170 to SoundSmith for refurbishing it must be a better generator than Grace F9. The original AT-ML170 is mid compliance cartridge.  

Lyra Delos. Brand new may be over $1500 but a second hand in good condition can be found under that amount. This cartridge does lot more than its price.