What is the best vintage TT for new audiophile?

Not sure what your price range is, but I'd look at a Well Tempered Classic if I was "only doing this once." Good luck with that delusional concept by the way. Heh heh.

I have 2 vintage tables acquired for very little money.
Sony Biotracer PS-X500, and a PS-X600. To me they are real keepers. They are complex in design but easy to set up and use. The PS-X600 I purchased from the original owner for $90 shipped to my door. I can not imagine doing much better for that price. These direct drive Sony tables were not nearly as popular as the Denon and Luxman types but were well made in the day and offer respectable performance with a good cart. Assuming you can find one outside of eBay you can usually get them much cheaper versus the Denon or Luxman tables. Depends on just how budget you want to go.

Thanks to all for your responses! Very helpful

Sonographe SG-3; AR ES-1; an early LP 12; Planar 3; VPI HW 19;

I recently had the pleasure of starting to restore a friend's SG-3. In terms of its drive system, it is very similar to the AR, and it almost appears that the entire design brief was to make the best AR possible.

What I ppreciated is that the table can be balanced directly from the top of the plinth.

All the tables I mentioned are solid designs which can be bought these days very reasonably. The least fiddly one is probably the Planar 3.