I haven't heard it yet but Stereophile raved about the Pioneer PLX-1000. Add an Ortofon 2m Blue (the Red has terrible inner groove distortion) and you've got change from $1000. Although you'll need a phono stage as well. The Yaqin MS-12b (~$300) can sound really good with a bit of tube rolling. So yeah, about $1500 all up. This is probably as cheap as you can go and still get a half-decent result.
Incidentally I sometimes record my vinyl using Audacity and play it back digitally using Audirvana Origin to Dac to Power Amp. Sounds phenomenal