Turntable advice

Caution: The VPI Classic recommendation above is not what you want as you are specifically asking for ease of cartridge adjustment. At first, It will take you hours to get it right, more like days. Of course, after 9 years with one, it is a piece of cake and I get it done under an hour. Digital is easy, analog is hard. Just know that before you dive in. Less expensive tables with less adjustments will ease the process but you will regret it later as your options to get a sound to your liking will be limited. You are thinking wisely when you state a table with no VTA or azimuth adjustments turns you off. It should.

@baylinor the OP may need to explain what ease of cartridge alignment means. They may mean being able to dial it in correctly. In the original post, it was stated that the Rega P6 was a turn off because of lack of VTA or azimuth adjustment. The Classic has everything he was asking for considering the jig for the tonearm and ability to align the cartridge against it. I too owned the Classic for almost as long. I found it is easy to align a cartridge to sound good after the learning curve. 

I recently purchased the Gold Note PH-10 and PSU-10. So far I’m really liking it. Lots of settings for various carts. But having those settings available on the fly on the front of the unit is a huge plus.

The main concerns I have regarding adjustment and ease there of basically boil down to how manageable it is to adjust and align the cart without excessive expensive tools to best reproduce the recording with good tracking and minimal excessive wear to records. I’d also prefer if most of the adjustments with the included / purchased headshell and within the whole table were sufficient to fulfill the requirements above without excessive shimming. 
 

The 1200gr looked appealing but I had read somewhere about some issues regarding vta with some carts/ headshells and needing to find a mat that helps the cart be leveled out but that could have been user error on the posters part. 
 

some models I considered 

clearaudio concept with satisfy arm 

1200gr 

Mofi ultra deck +m 

well tempered labs Amadeus jr ( pushing the upper end of my budget with 5-700 dollar cart) 

Eat C major  ( pushing the upper end of my budget with a 5-700 dollar cart)

vpi scout 21 ( super pushing the budget with 5-700 dollar cart)

also ease of alignment for me is a weird sticking point due to some records being brand new ( for use with the more expensive cart above) and then I’d like to use a cheaper cart for sampling older more worn/etc records to not put excessive wear/grime on the higher end cart ( higher end relatively speaking within my budget I realize 5-700 probably isn’t a lot for a cart in most peoples eyes)  

as far as MC cartridges and phono, folks generally ge tthe best sound from a step-up transformer into a top-notch MM phono stage. but a stepup is $400-$1k for good ones. 

someone mentioned the DS2. ive listened to  MM section, and it was damn good. all adjustments on front of unit. quite good. never listened to MC section. adjustable gain is a nice feature regardless.