young and new to analog.

Chuck,

I will also remark that you should consider a Technics SL-1200MKII, with or without KAB USA mods. If your budget allows get the arm rewired and then the fluid damper. You can mount the damper yourself but have Kevin at KAB USA do the rewire.

Another vinyl route is to try to land a higher quality vintage table from any of the major Japan Inc. companies. Denon, JVC, Kenwood, Sansui, Pioneer to name a few. Back in the late 70's and early 80's each had very good quality direct drive with quartz lock designs. These will give many of the lower priced say sub $1000 turntables today a run for the money.

For amplifiers if you want solid state consider along with others noted here Cambridge Audio integrated amps. If you want to go tubes, do not be afraid of a good China Inc. brand say a Yaqin, Music Angel, Bewitched, Ming Da etc. These are better than many may think and go for very good values today.

i actually thought going used/vintage might be a good idea, but i didn't know what to look for (about all i know is to go for a manual deck)

any specific models from those companies to check out?

(i keep adding to my posts haha) but what about dual turntables? i hear alot about vintage duals being pretty solid

Agreed on an integrated making ideal sense for you. Marantz is one of the few companies that still makes a budget integrated with a phono stage, and it's very decent (I owned a previous incarnation). And it has plenty of power, too--Music Direct sells it. When I was getting into this hobby at 21 I bought an NAD integrated and kept it for nearly 10 years--and I'm still using a newer NAD amp, after I regretted selling the first. You can't go wrong with a C320BEE or C325BEE (they're virtually identical) for a starter--and even keeper--though they will require an add-on phono stage. Go with NAD, Pro-Ject, or Bellari, and you're set for the phono. NAD amps tend to be a little warmer in tonal balance than the Rotel or Arcam. Jolida's tube/solid-state hybrid integrateds are great, too, but need a phono stage as well.

As far as speakers go, I can't recommend strongly enough that you listen before buying if you can. Especially in a starter setup, and given a decent TT such as you're looking at, they're likely to be the biggest factor in your daily enjoyment of your rig, with it putting out the color of sound you want to listen to. The $350 KEFs I bought at the start are still in my system. At the very least find out if you like a bright/detailed, warm/midrangey, bass-heavy/full sound, and then look for speakers that seem likely to suit your tastes (and the size of your room). That said, it's hard to go wrong with any number of decent monitors, new or used, in your price range. You'll get recs galore in the speakers forum, I'm sure.