If you are serious about this, as others on this thread have said, you probably want to save up around $2k to make this a good experience from you. Even then, if you don't have someone there helping setup the table, etc, it is likely to be an exercise in frustration, as making turntables sound as good as CDs is not easy to do with all of the setup variables involved.
But - if you want to just jump in, buy the Audio Technica table and cartridge that has been recommended. Take the table and the cartridge to a reputable hifi dealer who can properly set it up, and pay them to do it.
You'll be in for about $400 at this point, and you'll need to buy some records to of course. You'll need to find a phono stage as well. This would be a good time to decide if you want to take things seriously, or if it was just a fun experiment, or maybe nothing will go right, and you will hate everything about how high maintainence analog playback is. Either way, that would be a good place to start.
But - if you want to just jump in, buy the Audio Technica table and cartridge that has been recommended. Take the table and the cartridge to a reputable hifi dealer who can properly set it up, and pay them to do it.
You'll be in for about $400 at this point, and you'll need to buy some records to of course. You'll need to find a phono stage as well. This would be a good time to decide if you want to take things seriously, or if it was just a fun experiment, or maybe nothing will go right, and you will hate everything about how high maintainence analog playback is. Either way, that would be a good place to start.