Best turntable under $4000

It's been awhile since I've been on the Gon. Glad to see we still have knuckleheads posting that have no interest in HiFi or listening to good music but would rather grab a turntable off a garbage pile and spin a scratched Springsteen record. Wish Chaskster was still on to argue with everyone. I speak to him weekly btw, he's doing well if anyones interested. 

Regarding the OP's quest. I'm a direct drive lover. My 1200 GR get's fired up daily with vintage MM carts.  Luxman and Victor are ready to roll too. 

knollbrent

Glad to hear that Chakster is doing well, I miss him here as well. He passed on his knowledge and experience gave me good advice. Say hi for me.

Well there are some fine suggestions here, I doubt the Basis turntable /arm combo available on US Audiomart would be bested by any of them. Most of the ones suggested are not in the same league. Basis tables are a great combo of simple but very well thought out design combined w/ a very level of build quality & reliability. The Vector 4 arm on that table now sells for over$6000 & just about worth the asking price itself assuming good condition. It’s easy to set up w/ excellent detailed videos by the late founder & designer, AJ Conti & full support & parts ( other than a new belt , unlikely anything required) fully available as the company is fully operational. 
 

I recently installed a DS audio E1 on my 17 year old VPI Scout with a dramatic improvement in sound quality. As I used my phono preamp as trade-in it was a pretty economic upgrade. If you like your TT, that might be a way to gradually improve your analog.

Curt, what’s funny to me is that you think $4000 is an extravagant, irresponsible amount of money to spend on a TT and tonearm. Whereas I rank it as a sweet spot where you can get a lot of bang for the buck, and I rank your hypothetical $100 Sansui as either your joke on us or an indication of self delusion. Yes, we agree that there is such a thing as ridiculously expensive, but I’d put that threshold much higher. Your original post elicited so much ire I think mostly because most of us are old fogies who have earned our money and are comfortable enough financially that there is absolutely nothing sacrificed by spending $4000 on a turntable. I have investments in tax-free bonds and mutual funds, and I don’t even live off their earnings. I simply roll them over. I am fortunate in that I can do that and still buy a $4000 turntable, if I wanted to. But as I already own five turntables that are always up and running into two different systems, I am not in the market for another turntable. If you look at the system pages of many of the guys who comment here, you will find that many of us own very elaborate systems that are very well thought out and not extravagant by modern  criteria. In other words, you are preaching to the converted, but more than that you are preaching to those who do not want to be preached to. If all that matters to you is accumulating static wealth, then also, you came to the wrong place.