Want to add vinyl to my system.

@bwguy 

There are many good quality phono preamps/stages at many price points, so a budget would help us to narrow it down.  The Parasound Halo JC3+ or the PS Audio Stellar Phono Preamplifier are safe bets with lots of positive reviews 

A couple of other turntables recommended to me are the Mark Levinson 5105, EAT C Sharp, and VPI Prime.  Any thoughts on these models?

I can only but agree with mijostyn.

I am a record collector from the 70s, have reduced my collection to around 1200 or so now.

I would not bother with vinyl now if strarting from scratch. I had a superb vinyl setup, kuzma XLDC, 4pt, Atlas, Ypsilon phono. Eventually my digital caught up with the vinyl, unless playing mint analogue albums or some audiophile recordings (still marginal gains) digital was as good sometimes better. Most new LPs are from digital recordings, it also seems a lot of the recent MoFi productions are from DSD files!

What this person said. I have a P6 decent phono stage but only couple hundred albums. But I have worked my digital front end up to where it sounds almost as good and sometimes better than vinyl. This is budget is where I must live.

Given the storage complications and the cost of new vinyl releases and even the cost of used I would not recommend the path. Streaming/file/disc technology only getting better. It is the future.

Note: Especially given what ROON has to offer.  Like walking into a virtual library of music at your finger tips. 

rsf507

and how much does a "great digital system" cost?  My impression is a $2k CD player/DAC might be great to some, while for others, it will take a $20k investment to actually be great digital that is comparable or better than crackling popping  analog.

@jymc Can you elaborate on your Post.

Are you suggesting that it takes others $20K's Worth of Digital Equipment to produce a Digital Source that compares to a Vinyl Source of which value ?

Is your own experience that you have discovered a Digital Source for $2K, that will impress a group, is this discovery also suggested to be a rival to a Vinyl Source to which Value ?