Looking for the best moving coil cart that is around $5K used

Thanks to all of you for your responses.  I will consider your recommendations.  One thing I agree with-my $$ is better spent on a new cart, rather than a used one.  Interestingly enough-I had no offers to buy anyone's used cart. :)  As I said, my sound is good, maybe even great.  Just looking for somewhere to improve.  I'm satisfied with all of my main components.  Thought I might try a new cartridge, Not that the cart isn't a main component.  I think it's one of the most important ones.  Garbage in-garbage out.
Steve

If you are looking for somewhere to improve it is your turntable and/or tonearm. Just because your Pioneer sounds as good as your VPI doesn't mean that either of them are letting you get the best from your cartridge.

Try using a great tonearm like Graham, Basis, EMT, etc and you will see what I mean.

Good luck and have fun 

I've been lucky buying most of my used cartridges, but yes it does involve some luck. I've bought a couple of used Koetsu stones that sounded just like a new one (now that I've had a new one to compare, and Koetsu rebuilds too) and have lasted a long time. I'm long done buying used cartridges, but a bit of a gamble helped get me into Koetsu at I time I would't have otherwise ($3K vs. $9K new).

You just need to "luck" out on a seller who cleans their stylus frequently, plays clean vinyl, runs proper alignment & VTF, avoids traumatic stylus incidents, reports hours honestly, doesn't hide issues like a skewed cantilever, low-rider, channel imbalance, etc :P The high-rollers that run a rotation of multiple high-end cartridges are good candidates. And unfortunately the audiogon market isn't what it once was for carts on offer (I rarely see Koetsu stones that look any good for a reasonable price).

But like others said -- at this point look at your table/arm first, and don't forget phono stage either!

The ability of the arm to track the cartridge correctly is far more important than what cartridge! So the answer to your question will be the cartridge that works best in your arm.
 
The thing that would worry me about an inexpensive arm is the bearings. If there is any slop in them the arm simply will not be able to do its job. Quite often the reason there is slop is that the bearings are damaged, if they use points. If they don't (using ball bearings), they might have a lot of sticktion... For this an other reasons there is a good argument for going with something other than the stock arm. I don't remember all the Pioneer tables, although I've working on many, but what I do recall is that none of them were offered without an arm.

So that might be the tricky bit...

Maybe I missed it, but did the Ortofon Winfeld Ti get mentioned?  That is the one I would spend my $5K on without a second thought.  In fact it is the one I will spend my $5K on when my current Per Winfeld is up for renewal. I love the sound of this cartridge.  In fact I prefer it over any other I have heard including the vaunted Atlas.