I need your help. I have an ARC Ref 3, ARC 110, Vandersteen 5As, but no turntable.

If you have no Lp's now, why go into analog, the learning curve is very slow.

IMO just stick with digital.

The vinyl-deny-ers just don't get it. It's not about convenience or practicality. It's about getting involved. You have to hunt for good records and when you find them, you can touch them and see them and store them tangibly. The turntable is a simple mechanical device that you can touch, adjust, and understand. All of this goes away with digital. 

Back on topic, the OP ought to understand that turntables, phono stages, and cartridges all have flavors. So does the wiring in the tonearm and the phono cable from tonearm to phono stage if applicable (my Reed 3P has one continuous cable from cartridge pins to phono stage-the way all tonearms ought to be :-) ) OP-my suggestion of Gem Dandy Polytable with Jelco arm, Chinook phono stage, and Denon D103R will render rich tone like a Rembrandt painting. Many vinyl rigs that aim for retrieving detail are just not particularly euphonic or fun to listen to. I very much appreciate Raul's affirmation of my gear recommendation but his tagline of "play music and not distortions" is divorced from reality. There is no getting away from distortion. It must be instead accommodated in your favor. If you ignore every other thing I say, fine, but please don't ignore my suggestion that your first new table needs to have an arm that can be easily adjusted in the real world by which I mean on your equipment rack without the necessity of removing it to some laboratory type setting ;- ) The purpose of having a pro set up your table the first time is so that you can hear first-hand how good your deck can sound providing you a reference point but you don't want to end up being in a position where you are helpless without the pro each time your deck no longer sounds up to par. Go Into this with eyes wide open that set and forget does not apply to vinyl. The suspension that holds the cantilever in placer changes with time. You need to be able to detect it and adjust accordingly. If that is not satisfactory, than the quote above does apply validly to you. 

Dear @inna : MF compares that " entry level " TT with the stock tonearms against its full Continnum extremely epensive TT and tonearm and everything. Only this analog rig has a price higher than many of our whole udio system ! ! !.

R.

Dear @fsonicsmith : ""  music and not distortions" is divorced from reality. There is no getting away from distortion. """

agree, we can't avoid several kind of room/system distortions. The target is: first learn to identify what is distortion from the signal we are listening it this is: what in reality is not part of the audio recorded signal but developed distortions. Second how to avoid the development of those distortions or at least to put at minimum through room/system changes but before this " actions " we need to identify where is the source of those different kind of distortions.

Mny times trying to eliminte  kind of distortion the chnges we did it strts to develps nother kind of distortion .
The issue here is that always exist trade-offs and we have to decide wich trade-off makes less harm to the music signal.

R.

Raul, my friend, you seem to forget that their is distortion introduced by every microphone known to mankind, but every piece of the recording chain, by every piece of the playback chain, by every amplifier in particular) known to mankind, by every tonearm and phono cartridge known to mankind, by every loudspeaker known to mankind. Even the concept of recording and playing back in stereo rather than mono introduces distortion. My point is to play the system and play the room. Does a solo female singer sound true to size, tone, timbre, and organic or does she sound like a bad hologram? Does piano sound suitably plunky, woody, and with tinkle or does it sound artificial? These are good starting points. 

If I remember right, Fremer has Ypsilon tube phono stage, his favorite phono stage. Unless this has changed.
Yeah, that Continuum must be something, but he compared the Technics with other tables too.