Best turntable for the buck

Rvpiano

i’ve been a VPI Prime owner for about three years. I bought a B-stock unit from Music Direct, and I’m located in the USA. if you can visit Cliffwood, New Jersey you can hear all that VPI has to offer. A used Prime or B-stock might be what you really want to consider based on price (usa) and performance. I’m currently using the 2M Bronze Ortofon cart and 3-D unipivot arm with second pivot. The cartridge was new with the Turntable purchase. I am a DIY kind of guy so I was looking for a “final” turntable that had upgrade potential that I could do myself. If you like an upgrade path the Prime certainly has one. Every upgrade I’ve made to my Turntable has been an audible improvement. I have successfully avoided buying a better turntable to get better sound.
lightly off topic to your hardware search is just how Important it is to have clean vinyl when playing your records. (and keeping your stylus clean). The quality setup you’re looking for WILL reveal sometimes unexpected presentations in your records and perhaps not surprisingly, the cleaner your records are the better they sound. I hope you already have a cleaning system in place, if not you should budget for one.

mr_putty,

Thanks for the input. I’m seriously interested in the Prime.  My local dealer has it and is willing to set it up for me, I’m NOT a DIY person.  I’m happy to hear you like it so well.  I just hope it will be a significant upgrade from what I have now. 
‘My cartridge is fairly high end, costing four figures and my phono preamp is a Conrad-Johnson. I do have a cleaning machine for my 2000+ records.

@rvpiano FWIW I agree with some of the opinions here about the investment required to get analogue exceeding the SQ of digital. I have $10K into my analogue front end vs. a $600 streamer + $19.99 mth for Tidal. The delta is crazy but worth it for me. 

My only suggestion is that once you have a solid foundation (table, arm, isolation base) consider upgrading your cart; A good TT can support great cart. I'm using the $1200 Hana ML (LO) atm and budgeting $4K-ish for it's replacement when the time comes. 

$4000 gets you the 1200G with a great arm, easy setup and a turntable that won’t fail you. A turntable needs to spin without variance, thats it. Collect a few carts and make sure your phono pre is up to par. My system thrives on simplicity. Check it out here. 24 vintage carts.

OP,

I can definitely recommend VPI turntables. I owned one for over twenty years… great value and performance.