Best TT under $1k

@bpoletti 

With all due respect, I question your poor opinion of Rega turntables. No matter what website, you never lose an opportunity to dump on Regas. Clearly you’ve had a bad experience with Regas but how many Regas have you actually owned? Your derogatory posts would lead one to indicate you’re an expert on the subject, that you’ve owned or heard every table they make. I’d love to know what Regas you’ve owned and what you felt was wrong with them, perhaps a P1, P3, P6, RP8, RP10? None of the above?

I have owned two Regas, the RP 25 and the RP6. I thought both were excellent tables, easy to set up and dependable with excellent sound. In fact, I sold a $10,000  Raven One table because I found the sound no better than my RP6.
Regas would not be one of the best selling and well reviewed tables if users were consistently dissatisfied. Would love to hear your experience ( and that of your entire family and friends ) about the many Regas you’ve owned.

@bpoletti 

“ I was told that to make a Rega perform, you have to add a lot of tweaks...”

That is simply untrue. The Regas I’ve had sounded great out of the box. True, certain tweaks may have enhanced performance, but this can be true of many tables. 

From your post, it seems your experience with Regas was  quite minimal. You had a few things go wrong and gave up citing “cheap parts, poor access, and substandard performance.”

My annoyance with your original post has little to do with the fact that you can’t stand Regas. You’re free to choose whatever table makes you happy. It’s the fact that you seem to go out of your way to denigrate them, leaving quite a few annoyed Rega owners in your wake. And after portraying Regas in the most derogatory terms, you kindly add “YMMV.” Thanks for that.

And, by the way, you’re not quite as funny as you used to be in your criticism. I found this quote of yours from The Vinyl Asylum:

“A rega arm does an excellent job roasting marshmellows. They slide right off the headshell. No other arm performs that well roasting marshmellows. Other arms are better relegated to the mundane task of helping to reproduce music, a characteristic mostly lacking from Rega products. “

That, I have to admit, was pretty funny. But you may want to learn the correct spelling of marshmAllows before your next helpful ROASTING about Regas.

“Once burned, shame on you. Twice burned, shame on me.” 
At least you did better than George Bush!

No one expects you to sample every table Rega makes. But to make such derogatory comments like “ I’ll take my chances on REAL (my caps) tables” when your experience has been somewhat limited, seems to me excessive and unfair. Many vinyl enthusiasts try different tables, some to their liking, some not. But I’ve rarely seen someone denigrate a whole company and its products with the fervor that you have. 

Thanks anyway for “softening” your opinions though I think comments like the above do not exactly qualify!