Help Picking a turntable

Wow, first let me start of by thanking each and everyone for your thoughtful suggestions.  I really appreciate all the advice and thought that went into your posts.  I love Audiogon and the forums, especially because there are so many with such a wealth of knowledge like all the people who responded to this post.  To answer some of the questions, I am just starting out in vinyl, not getting back into it, so all the suggestions on research are helpful.   I have thought about the issues, such as finding good recordings, cleaning, getting up to flip the record, and also that its not easy to skip a song you don't like.  I'm going to one of the better used stores this afternoon to check out their selection and buy a few records to test out at the store where I buy my gear, which is called Soundings.  The owner of Soundings says the store has a vacuum cleaner for the records that I can use anytime, which was nice.  I do have a top spot on my rack that would be perfect for a turntable, and have plenty of good storage for the records. I don't mind getting up to change the record if the sounds is that much better.  I know whether it sounds better is to some extent a matter of taste, so  I am going to Soundings on Friday to listen to their set up -- Soundings has a good relationship with Boulder Amps and has a lot of high res digital recordings that the guys at Boulder Amps have given to Soundings so I can listen to those and the vinyl and compare and see what I think is better.  
I appreciate that I know virtually nothing right now and appreciate everyone's suggestions that I need to do more research and go out and listen.  Unfortunately, we don't have many good hi-fi stores here in Denver, Colorado, but I'm starting on Friday at Soundings and hope to listen to some more vinyl systems next week at a few of the other shops in town that I know have some higher end systems.  I'll keep you all posted. 
I also greatly appreciate the suggestions you have all made on hardware if I do decide after the research to go this route -- you have given me some great suggestions to research and look into.  I also thought that the suggestions that I start with an inexpensive rig and then if I like it sell the inexpensive rig and only then buy a high-end rig might be a great way to try this. 

I also appreciated the comment about upgrading my digital if I find that vinyl is not the right fit for me.  I am always looking at that and considering ways to upgrade my system.  If I don't end up with vinyl, I will definitely be upgrading my cd player and I appreciate the suggestion of upgrading my dac through the dealer that I bought the 280d from. 

Again, thank you all so much for the advice and some great ideas to start my research and learning process.  From someone who knows nothing about vinyl, I feel like I have a good starting point to begin researching and try and discover if vinyl is right for me and if so how I should go about adding vinyl to my system.  Thank you all very much. 

Mofimadness, thanks so much.  I knew of Soundings, its where I get most my gear now that I know about it and I really like Rod, the owner (I got my ARC gear and analysis plus wires there).  I knew of Listen-Up, but didn't know of any of the others, including the one in Fort Collins, so thanks so much for sending me the names of the other places.  I will definitely stop by the other places now that I know about them.  Again thank you for the info and taking the time to send it to me. 

Thanks mofimadness -- I had not heard of audio house, cresecndo or sound science so i will check those out.  Sbank i did discover RMAF last fall -- wish I had known about it earlier.  I went all three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) last year and enjoyed it and learned a ton.  I did find that Friday was the best day because it was not as crowded and people had a lot more time to talk and help me out.  I am going again this year, I think it is October 7 through October 9.  If you are there, stop by the Soundings room -- they usually have a party back at their store on Friday night after RMAF closes for the night and it is a pretty good chance to meet the owner and see some nice gear.  I went last year before I really knew the guys and am looking forward to it more this year as I now have a good relationship with the people at Soundings. 

Thanks again for the suggestions and all the help.   

Hello everyone,
I was able to go to Soundings and audition the turntable Rod (the owner of Soundings) thought would be the best one: it was a Dr. Feickert Woodpecker (I don't remember the type of arm or cartridge).  He was using a Boulder phono stage, Boulder pre-amp and Boulder amp with Rockport Avior speakers.  While this is all above my price point, I must say it was by far and away the best music I have ever heard -- it was simply an amazing experience to hear.  If anyone is going to RMAF, I think Soundings is working in conjunction with Boulder Amps and will have the Rockports and the turntable there with the Boulder amp/pre-amp.  IF so, it is definitely worth stopping by that room, or if you are in Denver stopping by Soundings and listening.  I just have never in my life heard anything that even comes close to how amazing that system sounded.  The first album we played was Paul Simon's Graceland and I have never heard it sound anywhere near that good; then we moved on to Keb Mo and then a little John Lee Hooker.  There was a huge difference between the vinyl and cd --I was shocked by how huge the difference was.  The biggest downside was that it made my system at home sound kind of crappy in comparison.  This was my first listening test of vinyl and if this is how good it can sound I think I will be getting a turntable and some LP's in the near future.  I still have to look around a bit: as much as I loved the system that Soundings had, it is  quite a bit more than I wanted to spend.  For all of those out there that say vinyl is the best, I now understand where you are coming from.  Im still not sure what I am going to do, and need to do some more research because of the cost, but listening to the vinyl on that system was truly amazing. 

Again, thanks to everyone for all of their helpful and thoughtful input.    

Thanks for the heads up on the GEM Polytable and the link to the web page -- I'll look into it. 

Thanks for the info on the Oracle: I will definitely look into that.  So much great information and help from everyone on the turntable.  As an update, I took your advice and have gone to a few other stores here in town to listen to other turntables.  I have heard a couple other systems at some of the other stores here in town: a Pro-Ject Extension 10, a few other Pro-Jects that were less expensive, 2 VPI's and 2 Regas.  However, the systems I was able to hear them on were all different (the speakers, amps, preamps, phono stages, cartrdiges etc differed)  so it was hard to compare.  However, they all were an improvement over what I was hearing with digital.  I think the system at Soundings sounded the best, but that may be because the rest of the system they are using costs in excess of $150,000 and was better than the other systems and it may not be because  the turntable there (the Woodpecker) was better.  Hard to know, but I'm having a lot of fun researching it and also looking for LP's at my local stores and online.  I really like discogs.com for finding out of print and hard to find LP's.   I've already bought about 20 LP's. 

As I've been researching this and going to the various stores, I've also been learning more about cartridges and phone stages.  I didn't realize that different cartridges have different gain levels and some cartridges won't work well with some phono stages.   Yikes, I am a definite novice :)!!!     In addition to the Boulder phono stage at $13,000, Rod at Soundings thinks a ARC PH9 would fit nicely and costs $7,500.  But I can find an ARC 2SE on audiogon for a few thousand less,but have no idea which might sound better (Rod doesn't have a PH9 or a 2SE for me to try).  Rod hasn't heard either of them but says he spoke to Dave at ARC who says the PH9 would be better, but its hard to know as the PH9 just came out and the 2SE was just replaced by the Ref 3.  I've also heard a Lohman (not sure if i spelled it right) that sounded pretty good for $2000.  I may make another post just about phono stages to get some more ideas on what I need to be researching and looking for because I know so little. 

Thanks everyone for all the help.  I am very much enjoying the journey into vinyl and all the posts here have been tremendously helpful.  I greatly appreciate every one taking the time to help me out with all the amazing insight and advice.

Stewart0722, thanks for the suggestions.  You are definitely right when you say its a black art :).  I've spent so much time researching and listening over the last few weeks and feel like I still know so very little, but I'm having a great time learning and every time I listen to a nice set up of vinyl and then go home I find my system lacking, so hopefully I will figure it out soon.  I would have been totally lost without all the help from this forum, so thanks to everyone that has posted and helped me out so much.  

Hello everyone,

Thank you all so much for your great advice. I have now spent two months researching and listening to any turntable set up I could find. After two months of researching, listening, and going back to Soundings 4 different times to listen to the system there on various phono stages, and agonizing over what I should do (should I buy the best sound I heard, should I start at the lower end and work my way up), I found that Rod at Soundings seemed to be the most knowledgeable of the people I spoke to at stores here in Denver, and since I really liked his set up and the sound I heard, I pulled the trigger on the turntable/arm/head/cartridge -- still looking for and trying to figure out a phono stage. Anyway, Rod had a good deal on the woodpecker turntable where it came with a Jelco Arm, an Arche headshell and an ortofon Cardenza bronze cartridge, and he threw in some analysis plus cables. He said that woodpecker was changing distributors and the old distributor was getting rid of the rest of its inventory and was running a special, so I got all that for about $8k (more than I wanted to spend, but that system at Soundings was the best I heard by a long shot). I agonized for a long time over whether to start lower than that, but I fell in love with the sound of the set-up at Soundings that I decided to splurge a bit.   I'm still agonizing over the phono stage. I heard the PH9 by ARC, and it was pretty nice. The boulder was fantastic too, but at $13,000 a bit pricey. Been checking the audiogon phono stages everyday looking for something used that might work well and hoping to find a good deal on some used equipment to save the money (as I overspent on the turntable). I understand that if I go too low on the phono stage it might not work so great with my system, so I have to take that into account. By the way, for any of you going to RMAF, Rod will have his woodpecker along with the boulder amp/preamp/phono stage at RMAF with the rockport speakers. I told him he could borrow my turntable to have at the store for his party on Friday night after RMAF so he didn't have to lug the turntable back and forth, which he seemed to appreciate.   If you all have any more thoughts on phono stages, I'd love to hear them.   But again, thank you all so much for the advice: I thought about what everyone said, I went and listened to a whole range of different turntables, and I think (and hope) I will love the turntable I bought.  I greatly appreciate everyone's thoughts and advice here - thank you for taking the time to respond. 

Hello Everyone,

so I finally got my system all set up and at the house.  I found a good boulder phono stage used here on Audiogon, so I got the same system I heard at Rod's store.  It sounds fantastic.  It sounds so much better than the cd/digital on my system.  Thanks again everyone for all the help and advice. 

Hello Everyone,

2channel8 your idea on a good set of headphones when doing demos is great -- i never thought of that -- great way not to have to worry about different speakers.  Thanks for pointing that out to me and everyone.  

A few updates -- I still love my Feickert turntable and boulder phono stage.  I bought an Ayre QA9, which is an analogue to digital converter, so I could try recording my records to digital.  It takes a lot of time and a lot of learning, but I find my recordings sound great, and way better than cds and even better than high res digital I had bought at HDtracks.  I still love the turntable, and listen to LP's when I'm sitting down to listen, but I got the QA9 and record the Lps to digital so when I'm not just sitting and listening (such as cooking dinner or something) I can have similar to analogue sound through digital. 

MDS, I have always loved Thiel speakers, and the 3.7's are fantastic (my favorites still are the 5.0's - the huge ones from back in the 90's).  But I upgraded my speakers to Rockport Avior speakers, which I love. 

MDS, I know many people that don't love Audio Research, and I can definitely understand why, but I do seem to like their gear and the sound a lot.  I upgraded to an ARC REF 10 preamp and love it.  I still have the Ref 75SE, but trying to find something better for the big Rockport speakers.  I bought a used Boulder 2060, and its up at the Boulder factory being inspected (I got to tour the factory when I dropped it off -- super cool place and wonderful people), so I will see if I like it better in my system and my room.  the boulder seemed to be in perfect working condition, but Boulder has a pretty good inspection process and it wasn't too much, so I figured why not.  The boulder 2060 is a big change from the ARC, but I've heard it on the Rockports at a store and it sounded great, so we'll see. 

My LP collection has gotten huge:  the Colorado Audio Society had a member that passed away and he was an audiophile with about 3000 original pressings and another couple hundred MOFI pressings and his wife was selling his records for $1 to $10 a piece and I bought a ton of them, and most are in almost perfect shape.  Of course I've been buying some from MOFI and also from Discogs and my local store.  I got up at 4:30 and stood in the snow and cold waiting in line for Record Store Day -- got some good records, but a bit of a madhouse.   

For all of you who helped me on my turntable journey, thank you so much, I never thought I'd get back into LP's, but I love it.  Even recording them has become a labor of love for me.