If you were looking for a direct drive turntable ...

Chakster mentioned the Luxman PD444, it is a great looking TT, If I had known about it when I bought my JVC Victor, I might have preferred it.

One for a decent price, you would need to add one or two tonearms to this price, and a cartridge

I will say, if the Spinner has issues, there are less Luxman spares around than the TT81, and the TT81 costs less

Chakster mentioned the JVC Victor TT81. I agree.

They also made wonderful 7 layer wood plinths that fit either TT61, 71, 81. Single arm plinth CL-p1; Double Arm Plinth CL-p2, which I have and highly recommend; and a very rare CL-p3 for 3 tonearms.

Here is a very nice TT81 in a Two Tonearm CL-P2 Plinth, in Canada. The unit comes with the long 7082 arm, and seller has a 7045 he will sell separately. Chakster and others here know, and I learned a lot about the plinths, the JVC arms 7082 and 7045.

Anyone interested, I can tell you what I learned. I would get both arms, put new rubber gaskets for the sagging counterweights (which is both inexpensive and easy), and be sitting pretty with a terrific two arm TT, both arms VTA on the Fly, well within your budget.

You can see my TT81, with 3 Tonearms in my system photos here

mijostyn

I know exactly what you mean. I had one do that in my prior home. A taller upright.

Somehow, luckily, it doesn’t make itself aparent, quiet or my highest listening. Perhaps during In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida it's singing away. I play that long piano note on Sgt. Peppers on my Reel to Reel, listening for anything else in the room. I have not stuck my head down in there. I read that the top was supposed to be left open during play, true? btw, my Reel to Reel version, you can hear him drunkenly say 'In the Garden of Eden' a few times.

I am having a neighbor/recording engineer over to listen to music and he is bringing some of his recordings here tomorrow or thurs. Great guy, awesome recording studio.

He has younger and finer ears than mine, and he actively mixes his and other people’s music. I’ll ask him to listen for it.

That isn’t Donna’s mother’s piano, it’s a place for Donna to jamb as many pictures as she can, within my rules, all have felt, none touch each other.

My speakers, they are tilted back, you can see I have several objects on the slanted tops. I am always amazed they don’t vibrate and/or slide around.

I have tacky stuff on the bottom rear corners of all the hung artwork so they don’t get buzzing, and occassionally, low bass, I hear some loose object somewhere sympathizing. The other night, it was small objects I left on the window sill behind the equipment, a few allen keys, rca jack plugs ...

I’ll let you know what he hears. No other place for the piano. If a problem, either a divorce, or I’ll have to fill it with blankets! Donna will never know if you don’t tell her. It hasn’t been tuned in years. We are having Thanksgiving here, the grandkids will give it the brief play I am sure.

jason, chakster

when I first joined, when I first asked for advice, I would not have known how darn good both of those TT's I found are, and how rare it is to get one at a great price. You are both right, someone we know ought to jump on either one.

Canadian seller has the shorter 7045 arm listed separately for 550 CAD. You could get the plinth, TT81, both arms for 2,050 CAD (or offer a bit less). That's $1,650 USD. 

mijostyn

I am happy to report, my friend/neighbor/music producer and I listened for 4 hours and we could not entice the piano to sing.

we agreed with you, it must be doing something, but try as we may, could hear no sound emanating from it. he walked here, there, bent, stretched behind, ...

I thought, lets get blasting, and hit pause. the magnets stop the speakers rapidly, but the piano would keep singing. nope.

lucky is all I can say.

....................................

meanwhile, I had kept my tweeter's l-pads too low, he heard that readily, I adjusted, them speck by speck, he listened, then the slight compression he heard was gone, he pronounced the sound, imaging, depth excellent, and suspected when I checked the next day with the sound meter that I would find we raised the tweeters 2db.

sure enough, I simply perfected the Left tweeter's L pad a speck to match the right one with specific frequency bands from the GRP/Carver Test CD.

Listening a great deal the next day, I realized my mistake, and it's more than subtle effect.

While the meter was showing the level of the 16k band which I surprisingly heard, I thought, if I, 73 year old ears, can hear 16k, then it must be too high for Donna and younger ears. So, I lowered the L-Pad to reduce the tweeters (by about 2db is turned out).

What I didn't think about, didn't realize: the SPL I was hearing did not correlate to the SPL of the Meter. I heard 16k surprisingly well, but I think it is fair to say not as well as the meter.

Thinking/Listening the next day, duh, I wasn't just erroneously avoiding 'too much tweeter', I was causing some compression, because it reduced both the volume and time decay of the overtones of the upper mids.

The Eurythmics, Andreas Vollenwider, Blue Nile are full of splendid highs and the overtones of lower notes I had cut off. 

What a gift to have my friends ears.