Shrevie: You're asking for a new S2000 on a base Miata budget. Unless you go for a used turntable and preamp you aren't going to find your S2000 setup for $2000 USD. But you could have a decent base Miata setup for that amount.
I know there are lots of Technics owners that swear by the 1200 but there are also plenty of Technics owners that upgraded turntables. And I'd bet that most of them spent more than you're wanting to spend. But if you want reliability and ease of ownership for what you're willing to spend, the Technics 1200 is an obvious choice. And if I was buying a 1200 I'd splurge on the KAB tweaks.
The advice on going with moving magnet cartridges is good advice if you don't want to futz around with a moving coil setup. Moving coil cartridges are my preference, but you do need to pay attention to the signal path to get them to sound their best and that typically takes some extra cash for a step-up transformer or a more complex preamp. If you keep it simple with MM you can get a good preamp and cartridge for less money.
One last thing: Despite Tvad's snide comment about the Music Hall mmf-7.1 turntable, it's a good table for the money. (Not the best, but I don't believe there's a "best" anything at a given price point.) However, to get the most from that turntable you may need to fine tune it, something you wanted to avoid.
Tom
I know there are lots of Technics owners that swear by the 1200 but there are also plenty of Technics owners that upgraded turntables. And I'd bet that most of them spent more than you're wanting to spend. But if you want reliability and ease of ownership for what you're willing to spend, the Technics 1200 is an obvious choice. And if I was buying a 1200 I'd splurge on the KAB tweaks.
The advice on going with moving magnet cartridges is good advice if you don't want to futz around with a moving coil setup. Moving coil cartridges are my preference, but you do need to pay attention to the signal path to get them to sound their best and that typically takes some extra cash for a step-up transformer or a more complex preamp. If you keep it simple with MM you can get a good preamp and cartridge for less money.
One last thing: Despite Tvad's snide comment about the Music Hall mmf-7.1 turntable, it's a good table for the money. (Not the best, but I don't believe there's a "best" anything at a given price point.) However, to get the most from that turntable you may need to fine tune it, something you wanted to avoid.
Tom