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Even for visual a less than solid mount may guarantee you hours of frustration. Jumping from the CG5 (an EQ5 variant) to the Atlux was an incredible step for me. Going from wobbles, weird mount behaviour, erratic pointing and not finding targets, strange slews, gear almost knocking etc... really impacted my visual and made astrophotography an exercise in pure frustration. The much better quality mount just made everything work pretty much flawlessly.
My advice would be a second hand mount for $3.5K (originally worth maybe $5K) paired with a second hand triplet APO (I bought mine for $2.5K) would just sit in your possible $6K budget and give you solid, reliable enjoyment - versus possible regret spend and you saying if only I listened!
You might get lucky - but is it worth the risk if the goes pair shaped?
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