If you have a good digital front end you may be disappointed with analog at your budget. I have no experience with the Technics table you mentioned, but I would avoid anything with a "built in" phono stage.
Consider purchasing used. You might be surprised at how good a $500 vintage direct drive can sound. You can still find SL 1200 MK2 tables that weren't used by DJs and there are a lot of accessories available that can improve sound quality. I have one and enjoy it a lot. It's not the same as my Sota Sapphire, but it was about 1/10 of the cost.
I have a JVC QL-Y66F from the 80s that's really nice. It does have a couple of week spots - the base is hollow and flimsy and it will howl at high volumes. The feet are junk. I put a few pounds of plasticlay inside the base and replaced the feet with MNPCTECH feet and now it sings and no feedback issues at high volumes. I'm using a Denon DL-301 MK 2 cartridge on it and currently running it with my Manley Chinook. You could pick up a table like this for around $500, around $500 for the cartridge, and get a Parks Puffin phono stage for less than $500 and have a nice setup. The feet and plasticlay were another $150 I think. Not much more than you're planning to spend, but a much better setup.
We all have different budgets and ideas of what's "good enough", and we don't know what your digital setup looks like, so it's hard to say how far you would need to go to get enjoyment comparable to your digital front end, but for a lot of us, the "sweet spot" budget wise usually starts around $5K and then goes up from there.