Fix up my old AR or get a new table?

I would tune up the old AR and save up for something a notch above "budget".

As you can see from the Vinyl Nirvana site, there's a lot you can do to your AR to bump up its performance, depending on how handy you are.

I once gave away an AR turntable, and I still regret doing so.

I had the original AR Table many years ago and got all the full blown mods on it from George Merrill at the time.Then I thought vinyl was dead and I sold it for almost nothing,to this day I kick myself in the pants over this.
I had the new motor that would not hum,new platter acrylic,new outer ring clamp something simmiliar to VPI's that cost $500.00 by itself,new suspension ,also 1 inch cutout for the arm you specifically requested for the table.
The cutout was integrated with the subchassic,Your spindal was sent to them to get remachined to perfectly fit into the platter and would take a few hours to fully seat into your table once you got it back from George.I also rewired all the wires under the table with Kimber Silver and this opened things up even more,and I replaced the .22 600V cap with a Rel Cap and it still improved the sound.Oh well in life you win and you strike out.I'm back to a VPI MK3 Table now with no turning back Good Luck on your Quest..

I guess the question really is, can you get better sound for $2000 than for what it costs for the AR. A nice cartridge and arm pretty much eats it already, table aside.

Yes, I kick myself in the pants every time I think about not biting the bullet back then and sending in my ES-1 for the full Merrill mods. Easy to say that now, but back then money was an issue. It's just too bad that his company stopped doing that kind of work. Anthony Scillia seems to have taken over; he offers new armboards, adjustment studs, SS shaft, and a spring kit. But no subchassis upgrade.

76, how did you like the Merrill acrylic platter? And was the Rel Cap the same value as the original?

If it has the original "AR" arm (actually a Japanese OEM arm), replace it with a Rega RB250 or 300 arm, or modifications thereof. Then buy a new drive belt (around $12) and you're on the way to a tt that can compete with most modern mid-priced tt's on the market.