I'm more curious as to why. I still have one (same one last 35 years) but if I were setting up a new system I'd probably bypass vinyl simply not worth it due the amount of money it would require (at least for the way I'd go about it in building a collection up, vinyl's pretty pricey right now). YMMV. You sure this is something you really want to spend some time/money on? Ready to dive in deep to start or want to test the waters more? Just LPs and 45s or you want 78s, too?
There's a lot of activity in some FB groups with older turntables from the height of the time of vinyl; seems to be a regular supply of good used ones hitting the market still. With a little cleaning and lube and love and maybe a new belt or something might be a good way to go. Someone probably out there is a good source of refurbished ones, too. I haven't shopped new or used for a while as I don't need to....pretty sure my tt is going to outlive me at this point
(Technics SL1200mk2, currently with a Shure M97xE cartridge fwiw). A used one of mine in really good shape can be had in your budget but there's a lot of old dj-used tables that can be a bit beat
. The new Technics releases in the same line are out of your budget ($1500-4000 range IIRC); the upper end Audio Technica clones of mine aren't quite as good but could be a good starter setup. So, no real recommendations on what to get right now or where to shop. Needledoctor.com or lpgear.com come to mind for some stuff vinyl. Audio Technica, Pro-Ject, Rega, Music Hall are mentioned most often in your budget range.
There's certain preferences out there for drive style....direct drive vs belt (mine is one of the best of the direct drive type, was better than many of the belt drive choices at the time for the money if not all of them....IMO
). Most of the packages come with decent arms. I suppose some don't include interconnects now, but keep in mind short is better than long when it comes to tt cables due capacitance issues...here's a bit from the AH article "The Truth About Interconnects..." :
There is one application for interconnects where the sound can change radically. This is when connecting between a turntable and associated phono cartridge and your preamp. Use of the lowest possible capacitance you can find is very important, because the inductance of the cartridge coupled with the capacitance of the cable can cause a resonant circuit within the audio band.
Should you end up with just the right (or wrong) capacitance, you may find that an otherwise respected cartridge sounds dreadful, with grossly accentuated high frequency performance. The only way to minimise this is to ensure that the interconnects have very low capacitance, and they must be shielded to prevent hum and noise from being picked up.
You might check out vinylengine.com, a good site for things vinyl. Read up for a while before throwing money at it, tho. Good luck!
