In the market for a cartridge for Clearaudio Innovation Wood

Lots of experience with the Innovation, but less so with that particular SME arm.

Keeping your budget in mind I can second the recommendation for the AMG Teatro which is a truly wonderful cartridge. It's become one of my go-to cartridges for an affordable, but high-performance moving coil.

Another good option is the Clearaudio Stradivari. It's a little more money, but I find it to have higher resolution and a little bit more dynamic snap than the AMG without giving up any warmth. If you can stretch to $5K then the Clearaudio DaVinci is one of my all-time favorites. It has most of the magic of the Goldfinger, but without the eye-popping price tag.

Having said all of that, I've absolutely fallen in love with the DS Audio DS002 Optical Cartridge. It's $5K and comes with its own dedicated phono stage (which is required), but I haven't been able to find anything that comes close in terms of performance without spending a lot of cash on cartridge and electronics.

I'm a dealer for all of these products so take these words with a grain of the appropriate seasoning. Having said that, if I were spending my money then I would do the DS Audio and not look back.

I would also agree with esoteric about the DS Audio cartridge and phono preamp. It's a very special cartridge. I listened to it for an hour or so, though it was on the AMG Viella TT and not on a Clearaudio TT. I didn't recommend it because you said your budget was around $3K. If you can stretch it to $5K the DS Audio is worth a listen.

Is the DS Audio cartridge more sensitive to the dust and grime than conventional ones?

Is the DS Audio cartridge more sensitive to the dust and grime than conventional ones?

Not in my experience nor the experience of my clients. It's a traditional Shibata stylus and is going to behave the same with respect to dust as other cartridges using the same stylus profile. As with any cartridge keeping LPs and the stylus tip clean is well worth the effort.