Help with turntable purchase

For your Shure: buy yourself a new JICO replacement stylus, look only for S.A.S. (Super Analog Stylus) with Micro Ridge tip.

As for the amp you could buy same way (at an estate sale) a good looking vintage receiver with Phono input (MM) very cheap.

Or do you want something new?

Just looking at them I would go with the Rotel. The MMF is basically a piece of MDF with veneer and some holes drilled in it. Its belt drive which is fine but it has a built-in phono stage. So part of the budget went into a cheap phono stage card which whatever that amount was the one thing we know is it didn't go into the tone arm, motor, platter, etc. 

The spare cartridge will be nice, if for nothing else than to try it and learn a little about the differences between cartridges. Good practice mounting/aligning. The Rotel is direct drive so no worries about replacing an old belt. Ask about bearing lube. Main thing on some of these older tables, the bearing oil can go dry after many years. Same for the tone arm. Basically if you set it to zero VTF zero anti-skate it should float smooth and not stick. If all that checks out and you like the way it looks go for it. You will be buying a fully depreciated table that will hold its value many years. 

For best sound quality avoid receivers like the plague. Find a good integrated, either with a built-in phono stage or buy one separate. Either way will be light years better than the one in the MMF.

Great! Thanks very much.  I'm going to pull the trigger on the Rotel and look for an integrated amp with phono.  Any recommendations there would be great.  I've heard mixed reviews on the B&W speakers as far as pairing goes but I think I'll just wing it and see how it goes there.  Thanks again!

Sounds good,just play it with the Shure v15 the stylist may not have to be replaced.Play and enoy.

Shure v15 the stylist may not have to be replaced.

you never know, it's better to replace the stylus than your record collection :) 

Agree with the Rotel. I love my P3...

At your price level most turntables will give you the same performance be it DD or belt but stay away from built in phono stages as if it were the plague . Why ? Because the phono stage is the responsable of converting those extremely small electrical signals pickuped by the cartridge to a servicable level by the line level outputs of the preamp . 

It is also responsable for the Riaa conversion process in order to get your signal back to a flat frequency response , so you can imagine the work the phono stage has to do . The phono stage in a LP playing system is extremely important . Don't skimp on it . 

To go with a integrated amplifier instead of a reciever is excellent advice as the phono stages of most recievers are compromised . If you can swing it new you can get a Rega integrated which would cost about 500.00 . If you go used Rotel has design some excellent integrated with very good phono stages . Marantz is also a candidate .

One word of caution... if you go used , remember you might have to install sooner or latter new capacitors in the integrated unit depending on the age . 

Almost forgot...good thing about turntables is that they are highly modifiable in order to optain better sound as changing the mat , adding mass to the tonearm ( depending on cartridge ) footers , turntable mounts , etc .

I have recently returned to my vinyl collection. I purchased a Fluance RT-85. It was $481 with a discount code. It comes with a ceramic platter and and ortofon blue cartridge. It also has the great function of turning off at the end of the record. It does not return to the start but simply turns off which I like. I was looking to spend more but after being impressed with reviews I gave it a shot and it sounds great. I had a smaller budget also.

Thanks everyone for all of the info.  I'm going to look at the integrated amps that were mentioned and see if I can find a deal.  Can't wait to play my vinyl.  I haven't listened to most of these albums since the late 70's but have kept them in perfect shape.  Getting excited!

You can’t go wrong with a NAD 3020 series integrated amp. The 3225PE is the 3020i with NAD’s Power Envelope technology that makes the 30 watt amp perform like a 50 watt amp. They can be hard to find though. 

Looked everywhere and can't find an old 3020 in the US.  Found a 310 and a few others but I'll keep looking.