additional processing and customs charges on goldring 1006 or nagaoka mp150

could not find the spec either.  I called pioneer and they indicated it was a medium mass.  May try again.  Didn't really tell me much thought

Effective mass is similar to Technics, 12g or so. It's medium mass. It will work with any of the mentioned cartridges in this thread. 

The Grado Gold would be a good match with a 12 gram arm. It is within your budget!
https://www.needledoctor.com/analog/analog-components/Phono-Cartridges/brand/Grado-Labs

@invictus005 

12g does not work well for low compliance cartridges, you need 20-30g effective mass to be optimal for DL-103, Ortofon SPU and many other low compliance carts. 

Pioneer made for professional market, the company itself is DJ oriented nowadays, all their products are for DJs/Clubs. This is their niche and nothing else. If they were Technics they could make P-10 Exclussive again, but Hi-End is not their interest anymore. Pioneer is the leader on the mass market for clubs/djs, but mostly with their CDJ players and mixers, not with their vinyl turntables, professionals still use Technics. 

The best material for the cantilever in my opinion is the Beryllium (not available today) and this is one of the reasons those vintage cartridges with Beryllium cantilevers are so special. It was not a problem to use Hollow Boron Pipe for giant company line JVC Victor back in the days, but their choise was a Beryllium for the very best cartridges ever made, such as Victor X-1 and X-1II.  

And let me add one of the best cartridge made today - The Garrott Brothers (Dynamic Coil MM) P-77i from Australia. 

However, the vintage carts from the 80s are still better choice. This is the case when you pay very reasonable price for lightly used and perfectly working cartridges from the era when MM was a king (not the MC). Some of them utilized technology and materials that are not available today in MM design anymore (Tapered Boron Pipes or Beryllium cantilevers, patented generators like Moving Flux for example).

Some of the high priced new mm cartridges today doesn't have a Nude Diamond, they are tipped. There is no competition between MM designers anymore.

And some new " Coreless straight-flux cartridge " high-end MM cartridge from Japan (posted recently by Jonathan Carr in our MM thread) cost $8000 ? This is something new: http://topwing.jp/RedSparrow-en.html 

I’m not so sure about beryllium rods being better than boron pipes. Audio Technica took a different approach, ML150 used a beryllium rod and higher end models such as ML170 and ML180 used boron pipes.

Very few cartridges used beryllium cantilevers as they are incredibly toxic during manufacturing.

Most of these cartridges are very difficult to find in good working condition and are expensive. Best for OP to get either a modern Ortofon MM or modern Audio Technica MM.

Current MMs may not have boron pipe or beryllium cantilevers, but nude stylus profiles and motors are state of the art.

BTW, Ortofon 2M range is of the moving iron type.