Mike60, you have received a lot of great advice above. IMO it might take closer to the $4K number if you are looking for a table and phono pre. But who knows, there is a lot of good used stuff hiding out there.
When I jumped back into vinyl 7 years ago I used my old conrad jonson PF1 as the phono pre (using the ouput from the tape outs to the line stage). It may take a little more research finding and using a vintage preamp this way but it is an option to consider IMO.
I probably spent $5+K on my first vinyl system inculding a MC step up transforrmer but it was clear to me that it was better than my $7K CD player. On a few difficult recordings maybe not by much.
But I have gone way beyond that now and I am also much better at the TT/arm/cart set up. At this time vinyl playback just kills CD play back in my system. I suppose I could update my CD player but the red book CD standard is a limited format. There aren't any more bits to be pulled off those shiny disks.
When I jumped back into vinyl 7 years ago I used my old conrad jonson PF1 as the phono pre (using the ouput from the tape outs to the line stage). It may take a little more research finding and using a vintage preamp this way but it is an option to consider IMO.
I probably spent $5+K on my first vinyl system inculding a MC step up transforrmer but it was clear to me that it was better than my $7K CD player. On a few difficult recordings maybe not by much.
But I have gone way beyond that now and I am also much better at the TT/arm/cart set up. At this time vinyl playback just kills CD play back in my system. I suppose I could update my CD player but the red book CD standard is a limited format. There aren't any more bits to be pulled off those shiny disks.