Rega P2, Thorens TD-180 or Music Hall MMF-5.1?

The TD190 is a good fully-automatic model but the manual P2 and MMF-5 are sonically superior.

The Thorens TD-180 has long been unavailable, so that narrows your choice to two. (If you mean the TD-170, forget it; it's junk.)

The Music Hall MMF-5 has a slightly more sophisticated deck than the Rega, but the Rega P2 has a far, far superior tonearm. In my experience, simpler is better, and provided you can properly isolate the Rega, I'd go that way -- the RB250 arm is by far the best in class and can function wonderfully on tables much more expensive than the P2.

Want the best idea as far as future-proofing is concerned? Get a Rega P3 for a few bucks more. The RB30 arm is phenomenal, and if you later upgrade to the external power supply and a cartridge in the $500 range, you can have a quiet, tight, fast analog front end.

>>The RB30 arm is phenomenal<<

Well, if in fact you meant the RB300, you're quite incorrect.

The RB300 is a solid, serviceable, and reasonably high value tonearm but hardly phenomenal.

Come on, man...the guy is asking about a starter turntable. Is the RB300 or RB301 "phenomenal" compared to, say, an SME or Linn or Graham that costs more than six times his budget for arm AND table? Of course not. But name another arm at or near the RB300/301's price that performs as well. The Graham Robin comes close...at a few hundreds dollars more.

Get real. Let's not scare the guy away from analog by imposing our notions of good on him. Within his budget, he'll do just fine with any Rega arm-equipped table.