Best turntable under $4000

@yogiboy 

(In best Yoda voice). “yes, yes, to yogiboy you listen.”
 

will last you 40: years 

I own 3. No issues, no breaks, no belts,perfect rotation, no slowing down, no speeding up, always flawless play.

bought first 2 in mid late 80’s, bought. Third, black version in very early,2000’s I think.

no issues at,all. Start &:stop on a schilling!

I would get the Dr. Feikert Volare and use your current cartridge.

Cartridges wear our and you can upgrade when you can afford it or need to replace the cartridge.

The Technics is also a good suggestion

appearance:

you have generally picked wood, rounded corners, low height, slim horizontal look. can you give other examples of alternate desired appearance regardless of price?

belt or direct drive. you have picked mostly belt drive. coincidence or definite preference? is quartz lock direct drive acceptable? compromise, or equally acceptable?

is used a consideration? not only to save money, access to models no longer made.

semi-automatic, optional manual/auto is a nice way to have that. I suspect used models are more likely to offer that, just an example:

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personally,

1. I consider a removable headshell as fundamental.

a great many turntables today have fixed cartridges, pre-aligned, nice but very limiting regarding alternate cartridges, i,e, a mono cartridge, a MM, a MC, listen to a friend's cartridge. eventually the supplied cartridge will wear, a new cartridge will  need to be aligned, so that pre-aligned advange is fleeting.

2. tt with no arm. flexible mounting system. buy an affordable arm now, perhaps a better arm later, or best, buy most desired/affordable arm now.

3. two tonearms. if you listen to a lot of jazz, many greats made great music/albums prior to stereo era. 2nd arm: having mono cartridge pre-mounted, aligned, ready to go to switch instantly between stereo arm and mono arm in a listening session is wonderful.

example of used, allows 2 tonearms: luxman PD444DD, rear can be  long arm, side 9".

start with 1 arm. add or never add 2nd arm as things develop.

more metal than wood, but very low/sleek design. needs wider area, advantage, many two arm tables are deeper than normal.

https://www.google.com/search?q=luxman+pd444&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS949US949&oq=luxman+pd444&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512l2j0i22i30l2j69i61l3.9693j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

this example has problems, you would need to wait for a good one to show up.

I helped a friend buy and install this with 2 micro seiki arms, there is some great engineering that is not apparent.

used, Mitsubishi linear tracking: single arm, optional auto/manual, removable headshell:

horizontal version is Quartz DD, vertical version is belt drive

I helped a friend buy/install a very lightly used horizontal model. don’t let low price put you off, it is a great performer.

again, this one has problems, just to see it:

note: wood look, not real wood, other versions exist without the wood.

vertical belt drive version

My vertical LT-5V belt drive version is shown here, in office system photos.