Buying used can be a good choice even a low buck table to start, as long as its functioning properly. If the table looks well cared for and you verify that the phono cartridge is attached and aligned properly then you are off to a good start. Then you can bag a good starter phono preamp for around $100 and up. Get a good carbon fibre brush and maybe look at getting say the Spin Clean record washer for a good basic set up on album care and you will be on your way. From this you can budget and move on up to better used or new tables, cartridges and phono pre amps.
Analog vs Digital Confusion
Thinking about adding Analog to my system, specifically a Turntable, budget is about 5K but I'm having some second thoughts and I'm hoping someone can help, specifically, how can the record sound better? Scenario; an album is released in both CD and Record, the recording is DDD mixed, mastered, etc in the digital domain. It seems to me that to make the master record the process would involve taking the digital recoding and adding an additional D/A process to cut the record? So, bottom line, how can the record sound better than the CD played on compitent CDP?