Vinyl***What If***

Howdy freediver.

Here is a viable answer to your question.  A Bang & Olufsen (B&O) BG 8002 with an MMC1 or 2 Cartridge will put you right there.  One great iconic piece of gear for under $2,000.00.

No "fiddling", & "easy setup".  Plug it in, slide the Tracking weight adjustment to 1.0 gr, push play and kick back.  It will make you smile.

Very nice installment of “The Vinyl Press”, Bill.  Thank you.  Not meaning to go off topic too much, but re your impressions of the Monster AG1000: The Monster Sigma Genesis 2000 retains all that you like about the 1000 and more; plus the midrange fullness and refinement that you are missing.  Fantastic cartridge that seems to like linear trackers in particular.  They come up for sale occasionally.  My favorite cartridge on the ET2 when my system configuration could handle .2 mv output.  

cool, thanks @Frogman. I've got a few options and i'll add that one to the list! 

Try you can get many recordings on CD that you can’t get on vinyl which at least on acoustic ,aka jazz and classical music, is always better .
Not to mention if you haven’t gone to at least a few hundred live music concerts you don’t really know what music really sounds like anyway .
A rock concert is not live music .

What Michael says is that each time you compare two sources in one system one is sure to lose. Better always win, no comparisons, as junk as something might be. Better than nothing, anyway.