Best phono cartridge under $350

With your tonearm Denon DL103r must be avoided! People always posting "classic" recommendation without even checking effective mass of the arm. Also it is not a $350 cartridge as you need very expensive SUT to make it even work! And it has conical tip.

You can buy great cartridge even cheaper than your $350 budget if you will look for the Ortofon M20FL Super (nude FineLine stylus). On that picture you see my Garrott P77 next to my old M20FL Super. Search for Ortofon M20FL in Raul’s MM thread here on audiogon, this is a great starter! Last year a friend with the same turntable has bought Stanton 881s mkII (Stereohedron Stylus) and he throwed away his stock M2 Red. My favorite Stanton is SC-100 WOS with sapphire coated cantilever, but it’s pretty rare.

Make sure to find reasonably priced cartridge with advanced stylus profile like FineLine or Stereohedron or Shibata. Don’t buy elliptical or conical. And for your turntable look for MM/MI cartridges. My current Ortofon M20FL Super comes with NOS stylus in the box (never used) and styli are still available online for this model. Let me know if you need it.

I can add to the list of great cartridges for relatively low price:
the Grace F-8 Custom which is looks like Level II, but silver color.
If those old F-8 models supplied with advanced original Grace styli of the second generation (Level II) like RS-8U (Utility 4) then it’s nude Line Contact diamond. Second generation styli (plastic holders) are always square shape, the round shape plastic holders are not Level II. Actually it’s a killer combination and F8 are always cheaper than F9.