marantz 6350q turntable budget cartridge?

First of all...SCORE! The 6350Q is a rare and very good turntable with a solid drive system and a very respectable arm. It's well above par for mass-market brands of its era.

Your receiver, while good, is the weak link in the chain here. So, you won't want to spend a ton on a cartridge and I think $75 is about the right amount.

The 6350Q is from an era where most arms were designed for high compliance cartridges. The bad new is, today's arms are the exact opposite so there are fewer 'ideal' cartridges still available. The good news is, what's left fits nicely in your budget and will work well.

The Shure M97xe would be my top pick. It retails for something like $140 but the street price is around $70. A very good tracker, pleasant sound, nothing to complain about at all.

The Ortofon Super OM10 is around $70 as well and is nice, relatively neutral and designed to match with a wide range of arms.

As for installation...you can do it yourself. You will need a basic alignment gauge. You can find those for a few bucks on line. Unless you have a good dealer in your area, professional installation is probably a pipe dream. You'd need to spend quite a bit more than $75 to make it worth their time. In addition, I might also suggest that you invest in a stylus force gauge.

Check out this article I wrote some time ago for tips on tuning up an old table:
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue18/turntables.htm

I worked sales at an audio store in the mid-'70s and we carried the Marantz 6300 as one of our main demo turntables. The 6350q looks to be a slightly later, improved version. We used a Fidelity Research MC cart on that 'table, but I also recall that the high level Grados of that era (e.g., Z2+ or whatever) sounded particularly good on it. The modern equivalent would be a Grado Prestige Silver or Gold. Since that's out of your budget, then it would be the Grado Prestige Blue, which is a notch above the Green, both in terms of cartridge and stylus.

You should also get good results with the Ortofon's latest iteration of moving magnet cartridges--the 2M Red. It also has a high compliance to match the arms of the '70s and '80s, and by most accounts is a significant improvement over the OM series.

Since the 6350q is a rare and desirable model, mint condition examples can fetch $500 or more. It's a good table but not that good.

So, you have another option: sell it and buy something more modern. In fact, assuming the table was in great shape, you could probably take the profits and buy a nice used integrated amp from Rega, NAD, Rotel, Cambridge, Arcam or others to upgrade your Yamaha, and still have a few hundred left over for a used Rega, Pro-Ject, Music Hall or similar turntable. Then sell the Yamaha and use the money for a cartridge upgrade.

My guess is you'd do better on eBay than Audiogon with this particular item.