I have been on the hunt for the best turntable I can buy. Any suggestions?

I recently bought a Philips AF877 for $75. I added some decent gold plated female RCA's and a ground lug. Lubed the main bearing, replaced the awful cuing mechanism with a beautiful Chinese made cuing arm and voila! Resonance free resin plinth, suspended chasis and a sophisticated lightwieght tonearm that accomodates some pretty pricy cartridges.

Okay it's not a Linn, but for a fraction of the cost of a used one, it sounds excellent. It even returns the tonearm at the end when I've nodded out on the couch.

I went ahead with the Beogram TX. I’ll post some pics and maybe a video to make all the negative people in this forum shut up.

If you want to sell your Technics SL-10 let me know! 

ive heard of that - is it worth checking out?

That is why I mentioned it in lieu of anything else. I didn't realize the budget issue. Given that, I suspect you'd have been better off having your old Technics serviced out. You can't buy much of a decent turntable these days for $450. The SL1200G is a $4000 machine. 

OK folks, let’s shift gears and help him get the best sound out of his TX.
we can be a welcoming community if we desire.
to the OP SoundSmith is a good source for info on checking your table, etc...
enjoy the music, the journey.
jim