Ready to try vinyl

You can get more than acceptable results without a record cleaning machine. Take a look at "Last Record Products"; I use their stuff now and no machine; just a supplied little plastic wipe thing with soft material on it works great.

I spoke to Nick Gowan of Truesound about record cleaning machines. His thought was that unless I was ready to pop for the very expensive, and large, Clearaudio unit I should go with the Last Record cleaning products. Save the money and buy some records.
http://www.lastfactory.com/Products/power_cleaner.html

Nick handles Audio Note (UK and Kondo) and has been doing this for over 20 years and I put his advice in the bank. He has never steered me wrong.

First I'd like to reiterate the suggestion of testing the waters with new or very clean LP's. Good condition, properly cleaned vinyl is very quiet. Listen to some LP's of music that you are very familiar with, of course.

As a first step, try to do some auditioning at a dealer. I'd recommend doing some listening on tables that would be within your individual budget. If that gets the juices flowing, take a "reasonable" plunge back into the analog waters. You can achieve some very good LP playback for $1200-2000. Have your dealer set the table up for you ( showing you how, of course). Put it on a level, isolated surface, and enjoy the music.

I re-entered the analog world about 4-5 years ago via a Rega P25 and Grado Ref. Platinum cartridge. When the Platinum is ready for replacement, I'll move up the line a step or two. The table, cartridge, and basic Nitty Gritty cleaner set me back $1,700. I've gotten my dollars' worth many times over.

For the TT, arm, cart, and accessories, I reckon around $2500 for a rig that doesn't have large drawbacks relative to cd playback.

I to recently returned to vinyl and after lots of questons bought a VPI SCOUT with a Dynavector 20 high output cart.
ALL THE ABOVE ADVICE ON CLEAN VINYL is very important and makes a big difference in overall sound quality. So keep a portion of your budget for a record cleaner and fluid.

I am enough of a rookie that I have picked up some tips just reading through this thread. But I would second the vote for the MMF-7. They do show up hear from time to time for $6-750. It is a great entry level table that you will be able to live with for a while to make up your mind about joining the cult. If you decide otherwise, you can resell it for probably the same price. If you do grow to like it, you may want to trade up to something that allows the tweaking and modding. Or you could be just as happy continuing to enjoy the MH.

Good luck.