Cartridge around $2K help.

How about this?

$2,500 Cartridge for sale

;-)

And, perhaps you can talk him down a bit, which would put the price right around your budget.

(FYI, I have two of the exact same cartridge myself; one I am currently using, and one for a backup when that one dies, (which will probably be fairly shortly, as I've been using this one for about 4 years now, and I'm the third owner. IMHO, there is not much out that that equals the XV-1S, let alone betters it, so why not have two of them?)

My two cents worth.

PS If you really want to buy new, (in case you dislike buying cartridges used, which I can certainly understand!), then the Van Den Hul Colibri would work very nicely. Below is link to a dealer of them here on Audiogon, (albeit he is in the Netherlands, but he has a good reputation). A friend uses this cartridge, and he prefers it to the XV-1S. (In fact I bought his XV-1S). Personally, I like the bit of warmth that the XV-1S has, which the Colibri does not have. The Colibri is an excellent cartridge though, as it has both a very high level of detail retrieval, as well as a very low noise floor.

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?anlgcart&1330706392&/Van-Den-Hul-Colibri-Gold-LW-

I'm certainly not in your league as far as price but maybe my opinion will help.

I have a Delos and I certainly think you can't go wrong with the Kleos. The Delos does sound a bit like Dynavector to me but more detailed with more bass. The Kleos should be even more refined.

I have a Grado Statement Platinum that was retipped by Soundsmith with the top stylus there. I bet it is very similar to the Reference. Very fast and warm at the same time. Very nice for what I paid. Probably not going to have he top notch imaging and depth the XV-1S has.

Myajima Schalabe. Might be a little above your desired price point, but you may be able to get a deal on one through the distributor. Two years running my favorite sounding analog at RMAF. Low output, but I think your BAT will handle it. One of the most lively and luscious sounding cartridges money can buy. I own a Transfiguration Orpheus and the Myajima is the one I would buy next.