Need some turntable guidance

Correction to last post. 
I meant DD is a less costly approach.

Garrard 301 alone (without plinth and tonearm) can be $4k and this is the type of turntable that must be fully refurbished, maintained, many parts must be replaced, this is a very old turntable. I like the design, especially hammertone finishing. With tonearm, cartridge and plinth this is way over OP's budget. I wish to have Garrard 301 Hammertone when I will be rich, here is a nice article about this model. It is probably a $10k turntable. With $4k budget I wouldn't mess around with Garrard and at this budget DD is the way to go. Especially Luxman PD-444 that does not need any modification, refurbishing, plinth replacement etc.   

I owned a PD-444 back in the late 70s and early 80s.  I attended a listening session at a local dealer in the early 80s that featured the Luxman, a Logic DM101, an Oracle Delphi and a Michell Gyrodec, all with the same arm and cartridge.

It wasn't even close, with the Luxman clearly the worst of the bunch.  I wound up trading mine for the Gyrodec.  As I recall, Luxman discontinued the 444 shortly after and came out with a similar belt drive table.

Be sure you have performed any necessary cleaning, oiling and greasing and other maintenance on the TT and motor. Happy listening.

It wasn’t even close, with the Luxman clearly the worst of the bunch. I wound up trading mine for the Gyrodec. As I recall, Luxman discontinued the 444 shortly after and came out with a similar belt drive table.

@xaak

I love people who can comment about some piece of gear using their memory from 40 years ago. That’s brilliant! How old are you?

I would prefer to read about Luxman from people who actually own this turntable right now, I have two of them and personally compared my PD-444 to the best direct drive turntables. Luxman 444 with its slotless/coreless motor is a keeper, I would never sell this turntable.

Luxman PD-444 was designed by Micro Seiki and everyone know that Micro made DD and Belt Drive under their own brand.

The story about PD-555 belt drive brother of the PD-444 DD is not as described in your post.

"The PD-555 sold rather poorly in Japan and wasn’t even advertised at all - a fate very different from the earlier PD-444 which sold very well and with minimal advertising, too." -vintageknob

You can find valid opinion from experienced users who own PD-444 since the 80’s and still love it (in comparison to many different turntables). You can read about it here (or see the quite below). It has been posted by @213cobra and I always enjoyed reading his posts about audio gear, because he has the same high efficient Zu Audio speakers and low power amps (valves and solid state that I like a lot).

Here is what he said: "I’ve owned Linn, Transcriptors, Thorens, VPI, Pink Triangle, Mission, Systemdeck, Kenwood, Sony and maybe even some other belt drive turntables since the early 1970s. I was socialized in my early hifi days to prefer belt drive turntables. But some things don’t stick. Continuously since 1980, I’ve had a Luxman PD441 (and later added a PD444) direct drive turntable. Various Linns, VPIs, Pink Triangles and Thori co-existed with the Luxman and it’s the Luxman 441/444 that’s always been left standing. They’ve won on sound, speed consistency, drive, tone, isolation, lack of noise, immunity from ambient factors. Rumble? I’ve never had so little on any turntable. It’s essentially undetectable. If there’s any coming from the turntable, it is dwarfed by rumble recorded into most discs. This Luxman series has a magnetic-repulsion arrangement for a "load-free" (I think it’s really "reduced load") spindle/bearing. A Verdier is interesting to me, but I stopped bothering with belt drive. I continue to get superb tone and energetic presentation from my Luxman PD 4XX turntables. Watch out for either a 441/444 and snag it." -Phil (213cobra).