best "entry level" audiophile TT?

Hey Guys, listening is SUBJECTIVE. How can you claim to know how good or bad a table sounded to someone else? Some like the sound of one table, others don't. Period. No claim of OBJECTIVE superiority can be sustained or substantiated.

Myself, I'm thrilled to death by the sound of my distinctly un-audiophile Yamaha YP-D8 DD table, unmodded, playing my Empire EDR.9 vintage cart. So my $400 rig (including cart) meets MY needs just fine. Will it meet anyone else's -- no way to predict.

thanks for the responses - quite helpful. I guess the price range is sub-1,000. I'm looking for solid quality, good sound - not sheer audio bliss. I, at least as of yet, mainly rely on other sources for music, and only have 40 records. I'm fairly new to audiophilia, and just bought my McIntosh MA6900 integrated, anticables / IC's, and vienna acoustic bach's - so I'm still recovering from the cost of all that while still looking for a TT.
And not to open up a new can of worms, but what /who / how much should I look for in terms of vibration isolation?

Tell me something psychic, have you ever even heard a $5K table? I have heard a SL1200 and it sound nothing like a $5K table. Doesn't even sound like $500 table.

No I haven't heard a $5K TT. I was born and raised in a little Caribbean island with only a few general stores and post offices. Not even TVs were sold. Everybody had little AM radios for listening to hurricane weather broadcasts.

Of course, the 1200 does not sound like a $500 table. You must have come from somewhere other than my little island. The 1200's technology to price ratio goes way above its price point. But then again, it's someone like Raoul the Mexican that gives you first world audiophiles a reality check regarding lowly moving magnets giving multi thousand dollar moving coils a run for their money. Money...ahhhh!

JohnnyB, e-mail me & I'll send ya pictures.

With psychic power and primal intensity,

...now I have to step back and reconsider how much of what I have read is hyperbole.

I got the impression that Psychicanimal was being sarcastic about his isolated background.

Whatever the situation, fortunately, there are some reviews that compare KAB-modified Technics SL1200s with more expensive belt-drive rigs. Here's one from TNT-Audio where the reviewer compares a KAB-modified SL1200/Ortofon/Creek rig with a near twice-as-expensive Music Hall MMF-9/MH Maestro/Creek setup.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/technics_sl1200_2_e.html

Also, Ed Kobesky has written a lot about the SL 1200 and has had a wide array of turntables and cartridges, plus he reviews for Positive Feedback.