If you want a great sound, two components are the most important - turntable itself and phono stage. Followed by tonearm, cartridge and cable. Talking new pieces, I would say that $10k/$12k for table/arm, $5k/$7k for a phono stage, $3.5k or so for the cartridge and $1.5k for the cable will get you far enough. Plus perhaps $1k for each power cord. The very first priority is the table itself, don't save much on it. There are so many combinations, it really depends on taste and availability for audition, unless you are ready to take a risk and buy unheard. I myself would only consider British turntables but not necessarily only British tonearms within this price range, not German, American, French, Canadian etc. They know how to make dynamic musical value tables. This means Nottingham, Pear Audio, SME, Avid, Origin Live. If not that I would probably go with better VPI . And I would definitely get tube phono stage, my choice would probably be LAMM but there are others. Choice of cartridge would depend on many things, including in some way on your speakers. As an example, if your speakers are very warm you don't want a very warm sounding cartridge but nor do you want a cold sounding cartridge. You can also fine tune the sound with phono stage tube rolling.
So, I think you are right about the figure of $20k-$25k for the entire analog set-up.
Good luck to you.
