What Turntable to buy under $600 ?

I respect your flawed opinion. We are not using Wheatons, Schroeders, and Grahams because of hype rather their ability to track more accurately than a Rega with an inherently poor bearing design. Again I repeat, no real reference analog system uses Rega tonearms. This is not a vanity issue simply one of performance. Read the threads on Audiogon my friend and see what tonearms are used with the cartridges I mentioned. Time to smell the coffee and live in the 21st century. Indisputable to an informed audiophile. Come join us.
I deliberately did not mention Koetsu, because like the dinosaur, they have outlived their usefulness and purpose to live forever in posterity with the Desoto, Edsel, Lafayette, Heathkit, and Scotts of the automotive and audio world. They have been replaced by Zyx and Shelter. Enough is enough. This is much too easy.

Back to the question at hand, here's a nice possibility-Microseiki

I had a P3 as my first 'phile table, and was pleased even before I knew it was fast. I did buy a used Sota Sapphire and was pleasantly suprised at all the new detail I could extract from a disc. The tonearm is a Rega 250, I got tired of the spring stories and turning the VTF dial to 3 as mentioned here on the 'Gon to eliminate the spring factor. (I just wanted to measure accuratley with a digital scale, by moving the counterweight with nothing else in the equation) The Sota is a good table in the used market, and are studier than the Rega if you happen to bump it. The Rega tonearms are a great buy with all the aftermarket endstubs and counterweights on Ebay and the like. Currently I use a ZYX Yatra on my Rega 250 and have tried a Shelter 901 too, both have made great music on this tonearm. A great tonearm if you don't want to break the bank. The 250 does not have the spring, but has plastic for the endstub and counterweight. I believe there is someone on Ebay that has both machined from copper for $60, not bad considering the Heavyweight and Kerry Audio F2 are both $100 and up.

So much ignorance running rampant!!!

Stan. Ouch on your remarks of the Koetsu. I really enjoy mine. :-)

I agree fully on the RB tone arms. I have owned a couple over the years in various states of modification and they are no more than junk once a certain level of performance is required.

You mention carts like Zyx but my experience is that even lesser carts like Dynavector 10x5 and Denon DL103 are wasted on an RB. I have run a DL103 on a modified RB250, SME3009 and Scheu Classic. It was evident that the sonics the RB produced was not even close to what the others were capable of.

I think when used on a noisy table like one of the old idler wheel decks or a direct drive an RB will probably work well as its shortcomings will be masked by the noise of deck.

Regards
Paul