Possibly Looking for a Turntable/Cartridge Under $1000

@jasonbourne71 Your a hard individual to convince, I'm sure my being Teatotal us well recorded on the Gon.

FTR, When purchasing a set set of speakers from a widower, selling the deceased spouses Audio Equipment, I was informed about the unacceptable Dealer offers made for the Vinyl collection. 

I offered almost identical advice and Grandchildren were drafted in to help. 

At a later date, I was thanked and informed, certain Albums were at a value almost as good as a Dealer offer for the entire collection. 

I have intentionally and randomly pulled Albums (no more than 5% of collection) where for certain EANs find £15 + as the value. One Album is discovered as close to £1K.

I have not realised these values but do see a Valuable Album collection worth much more than the £00.50p per Album dealer offers.

CD as a Medium is quite different, I am able to acquire between 5 per £1 - 2 per £1.

I stand by the OP seriously considering selling and getting increased funds for a Digital Source. 

For $1K or less, hard to beat what Technics and Fluance has to offer. Fluance is coming out with supposedly much improved version SOON (RT87??) that is currently under some type of beta test...  ENJOY !

I would find a really nice used Clearaudio Concept.  The table and arm are way above quality and sound for the asking price of a used turntable.  Many on the market will even include a nice cartridge.  This setup is way underrated at this price IMHO.  

The magic of CDs was not headroom, it is NO NOISE, FOR LIFE! That was a dream come true.

That’s why so many of us got into CD’s big time. Me: over 4,000 of them. Happily I didn’t get rid of my LP’s, many people gave me their LPs when they stopped playing them.

I had excellent cartridges before CD, however I never properly cleaned my old LPs, and my alignment skills were basic, trusting inaccurate dials.

When I got back into LPs, I played only new or very clean used ones, and then I learned how to clean my dirty ones, what a difference.

I bought some inexpensive tools and improved my alignment skills. Not perfection, just to have the confidence that alignments and calibrations were done with tools of measured accuracy and simple but revealing methods.

Then I inherited 5,000 LPs, primarily Jazz, mostly played once, maybe twice.

That’s the key to enjoyment, minimum noise, hands on, ....

It’s the cartridge/stylus shape/cantilever material that makes the biggest audible difference, we diddle with better tonearms to improve the alignment. It’s the lack of arm height adjustment and lack of azimuth adjustment that defines a ’starter’ turntable for me, but you only go there AFTER you get hooked!

Your budget is too low to get a great adjustable tonearm, but it is enough to get a darn good sounding setup.

Personally think CD's win in the noise floor area. But once you have clean records, and a very good cart, the difference is minimal. CD's can be cold, records can feel like they have life in them. It's a give and take, sometimes one is better over the other. 

IMHO, you can NOT dabble in vinyl. You either do it, or you do not. It is a big investment, in both time and money. Low end TT's suck, they have so much noise, and can be finical on setup, lacking some key adjustments. Think getting a $1k used TT, then a $500 cart would be a great starting point. 

In my TT journey over the last 3 years has been 3 new TT's about 5 carts, several cables, then a couple power supplies. Once getting my current TT, I realized the money wasted on the "budget" TT's and carts. Once you experience a low noise floor on a TT, with dynamics, and punch, you will understand it.