Good turntable equipped for about 700 dollars?

I agree with what SWKlein says above. A Linn LP12/Valhalla with a Basik Plus arm is in your price range and the best sounding set up for that amount of money. It will bury a Rega, MMT-7, or VPI Jr. The Audio Note mentioned above is a good table, and basically a re-make of the old Systemdek TT. But the Linn is still way above that. At $700, nothing is going to beat a Linn LP12. For a little more money, you could look at the Well Tempered Classic, which is LP12 competition.

Peter, in your price range you want to look for the LP12 with Valhalla. You can tell this by looking at the Power on/off switch at the front left of the TT. The older non-Valhalla models had a large red square pushbutton. The Valhalla changed that to a low profile black square button with a small red LED in it. That is the easy way to identify pre-Valhalla, and post-Valhalla. Virtually all Valhalla models were also upgraded with the Nirvana suspension kit, by the owners, and all Valhalla factory models had the Nirvana suspension kit in them. You don't have to worry about the Cirkus, and Lingo, and other such Linn stuff in your price range. I think the Valhalla is the ideal setup for the least money. All the other mods are somewhat controversial as to their effect.

The Basik and Basik plus tonearms are variations of the early lower cost Linn tonearms. I think the Basik had an "S" shaped chrome arm and a removeable headshell, and the Basik Plus had a black straight arm. They are well suited to medium weight and medium compliance
cartridges. A Goldring cartridge that fits your budget would do nicely.

Getting a Linn shipped to you is a complex matter. It must be disassembled and packed properly. Failure to know how to do this will result in damage. In any case the TT will have to be completely set up, as all settings will be lost from the disassembly or transit shaking. If you get one, you will need to post it, and ask for setup instructions. I will come to your rescue. I've done this for other members who have bought 2nd hand Linns by mail order shipping. If possible, buy one you can pick up in your car, and take home with you.

The Linn is a very musical table, and that is the best way to describe it. There isn't any one particular "audiophile" category that jumps out, with the exception of PRaT. It excels at PRaT. The resolution is very good, but not great. There is a slight warm "bloom" in the midbass, and the deep bass is not the best, but it's good. It is a very enjoyable TT to listen to, because you don't concern yourself with "audiophile neuroses", you just listen to the music and have fun. While it is not the "last word" in audiophile terms, it is a very nice TT and would be good enough to be a "final purchase" in TTs if you weren't obsessive about having the state-of-the-art. It was the best you could get, at one time, and many of the newer designers of audiophile TTs learned about TT design from studying the Linn. It probably had more impact on the future of turntables than any other TT made. Many people dislike Linn because of their "snooty" sales practices, and disparage the product because of that. I feel that is unfair, because the TT stands on its own merits as a good TT, regardless of the sales practices of its dealers. The attitude was rather like the Harley Davidson unofficial motto. "If you ain't got a Linn, you ain't got Sh*t." This offended alot of people.

From what I've heard, all LP12's are called "Transcription" turntables. However, they only accept normal"length arms. Most "transcription" arms that I am aware of, are long arms, around 12 inches long. These will not go on an LP12. There are different meanings to the term "Transcription", that are applied to those using the term. All record players could be called "Transcription" TT's because the all "transcribe" the sound from the record. Some apply the term to mean a kind of "reference quality". Others use the term to indicate a large platter and/or long tonearm length. I know this doens't really clear things up all that much for you, but those are the references that I've heard for the term.