Guys, thanks for all of the informative responses.
Mijostyn, Luck has no role in this. She is a nice young person who is probably much less fussy than any of us. After all, she has no prior history with vinyl to use for comparison. We met her for the first time this visit, at an outdoor barbecue. (We've got about a dozen longstanding Japanese and ex-pat Chinese friends whom we've acquired over the years because they are Dan's friends.)
akg-ca, I like the idea of the Rega System One very much. It harkens back to the 60s when KLH made a complete system that could be transported as a suitcase. The stereo speakers were derived from unsnapping the sides of the suitcase when the thing was in use. The central mass of the suitcase turned into a turntable, preamp, amplifier, and tuner that drove the speakers. KLH probably sold thousands of them. Of course, Henry Kloss was a genius. Anyway, the retail cost of the RSO here in the US is more than $2100, which surely will be inflated in Japan. So it is out of her budget. Budget is just about the only thing she stipulated. I will suggest it to her anyway.
Rega and some other "Western" brands are definitely available in Tokyo. I saw a Rega P8 for sale in a high end store but did not note its cost. I mentioned earlier that a Reed 3G retails for the yen-equivalent of $8800, even at the current inflated dollar to yen exchange rate. But one cannot be sure that the mark-up or mark-down is the same for all foreign brands. I also saw Wharfedale, KEF, and Klipsch speakers. These Western brands are very popular. Also, any decent audio store over there sells an array of individual drivers, crossover networks, etc, for DIYers. I often saw men discussing the merits of this driver vs that driver. Both KEF and Klipsch make small, self-driven bookshelf speakers that would fit into her price range. Of course, a lot of this gear is in fact made in China, which is probably why you can find it in Japan.
Let me re-state my question, because no one seems to have addressed it. When I look at the specs of one of these TTs with a built in phono section, it's hard to find a mention of the signal voltage output, and when I did find it for one TT, the output was listed as something like 300 to 400mV. So I wonder whether that output is enough to drive the built in amplifiers in the bookshelf speakers one might choose to go with the TT. Or do you need a linestage type device in between TT and speaker, to add gain?
