I could not believe it

I was happy owner of pretty decent rig (Supratek+Clayton monoblock+AA Capitole as cdp). One pretty Sunday morning I came across garage sale, guy have 20 years old Fisher turntable for sale (cheap looking extremely dirty unused for 10+ years).
I would not normaly buy it, but for $2 what the heck. I bought it for fun. It took 30 minutes of cleaning, and I connected it to phono stage of Supratek Chenin. I had some LP's at home.
To my surprise it worked. To even bigger surprise it worked so good.
I compared Dire straits and Madonna LP’s with exactly the some albums on CD.
I could not decided which I prefer (CD or LP). I really could not!
Remember we are talking about $8700 cpd and maybe in good condition $30 worth cheesy turntable. It keeps me wonder how much better would sound decent turntable ?
Classical music from Deccca, Deutsche Gramophone, Columbia Masterworks actually scared me. Resolution (there is not congestion I hear on every classic CD) smoothness really scared me. It cannot be so! I could not believe what I heard. Why for goodness sake we have ever embraced CD format, for convenience maybe, not for quality for sure?
generally sound from CD on Capitole have more body, much better bass, dynamics on some audiophile CD’s.
BMG and other normal CD are in comparison to LP’s simply unlistenable.
Classic on CD’s is especially congested and its resolution is not even close to what I heard from LP’s on cheesy Fisher turntable.
There is one but though:
a lot of surface noise especially on older LP’s.

So , analog gurus I'm rookie at the subject but believer now, please give me advice about some decent turntable which besides resolution and lack of congestion would give me even soother and even more detailed presentation, huge dynamics, wide soundstage. And would be quiet without this awful surface noise.

What Turntable would you recommend for up to $3000 used.
I read that pretty good ones are
Nottingham Space Deck w/ space arm
vpi scoutmaster with jmw-9 arm.
How does those two compare, maybe different recommendation.

PS.
I heard on CES $30.000 turntables and they have been awesome, but I have never though that actually cheap turntable could sound that good and actually stand a chance to high-end CDP and on classic beat it in spades.