You've fallen into the trap of thinking more is better. In reality its not until you get to a budget orders of magnitude greater that separates start to make sense. Maybe not even then.
Your turntable choice is fine. What you need from there is a phono stage, amp, speakers, and wire. The best most cost-effective approach is an integrated amp, preferably one with a built-in phono stage.
There is by the way a very simple logical reason why this is so much better. By far the greatest part of the cost of any component in your price range is the chassis, knobs, etc. Within the chassis one of the biggest cost parts is the power supply. Needless to say the chassis isn't that important to sound quality. The parts used definitely is incredibly important. So an integrated amp with pre-amp, amp, and phono stage all in one chassis saves an incredible amount of money that the manufacturer can then put into better quality parts. No wonder when you compare them the integrated totally sounds way better than whatever else you can buy for that same amount of money.
This is even before considering interconnects, which make a big difference. Get them all in one and you only need the one wire from the turntable. Which if you're smart you buy a turntable with the phono lead hard wired so you don't even have to buy an interconnect. Make sense?
The active speaker is a version of this philosophy. It saves money by using the speaker cabinet in place of the amp chassis. But there's a couple problems here. The amps tend to be specialized for the frequency of the drivers or impedance of the speaker. Which is fine. Except the real reason they do this is to get away with as cheap parts as possible. Which is bad. And the amp winds up being in the worst location you could possibly imagine, right next to the high magnetic fields of the drivers and the vibration they produce. Finally, when later on you want to upgrade then you find your choices limited by these crappy amps built into the vibrating speakers. A good integrated is a far better way to go.
There's a ton of em out there. What's your budget? With a $500 turntable I'm guessing $2k all-in? Something like that? Whatever it is, divide by the number of components you need- integrated amp, speakers, wire- and go shopping!
Your turntable choice is fine. What you need from there is a phono stage, amp, speakers, and wire. The best most cost-effective approach is an integrated amp, preferably one with a built-in phono stage.
There is by the way a very simple logical reason why this is so much better. By far the greatest part of the cost of any component in your price range is the chassis, knobs, etc. Within the chassis one of the biggest cost parts is the power supply. Needless to say the chassis isn't that important to sound quality. The parts used definitely is incredibly important. So an integrated amp with pre-amp, amp, and phono stage all in one chassis saves an incredible amount of money that the manufacturer can then put into better quality parts. No wonder when you compare them the integrated totally sounds way better than whatever else you can buy for that same amount of money.
This is even before considering interconnects, which make a big difference. Get them all in one and you only need the one wire from the turntable. Which if you're smart you buy a turntable with the phono lead hard wired so you don't even have to buy an interconnect. Make sense?
The active speaker is a version of this philosophy. It saves money by using the speaker cabinet in place of the amp chassis. But there's a couple problems here. The amps tend to be specialized for the frequency of the drivers or impedance of the speaker. Which is fine. Except the real reason they do this is to get away with as cheap parts as possible. Which is bad. And the amp winds up being in the worst location you could possibly imagine, right next to the high magnetic fields of the drivers and the vibration they produce. Finally, when later on you want to upgrade then you find your choices limited by these crappy amps built into the vibrating speakers. A good integrated is a far better way to go.
There's a ton of em out there. What's your budget? With a $500 turntable I'm guessing $2k all-in? Something like that? Whatever it is, divide by the number of components you need- integrated amp, speakers, wire- and go shopping!