Looking for turntable for under $1000

I considered the Lenco, but after watching several E-Bay auctions and reading several Lenco threads, it became clear that the investment was eventually going to exceed $1000 once a better plinth was built and a good tonearm was purchased. I decided I was more interested in a plug-n-play solution. The KAB Technics SL 1200 series tables would be at or near the top of my list at the $1000 price point due to their reputation and ease of use.

KAB 1200--the Creature on steroids? It's not 'audiophile approved'. Wait, what happened on TNT reviews? Oh...one of those Creatures w/out the revved up power supply smoked a MMF-9. That wasn't too much of a challenge. Totally revvved up Creatures do go in the $5K performance level.

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Midirons - thanks very much for your comments. I went through a similar exercise and ended up ordering the Pro-ject RM-5 today; it is the most recent table to be brought out by Pro-ject to compete with the Rega P3. There's a great review of the RM-5 on 6moons (notice how the sub platter resembles that of a Rega):

http://www.sixmoons.com:80/audioreviews/project3/combo.html

I'd just suggest you throw a Dynavector 10x5 cart on that P3 instead of a Rega cart.

Synthfreek - thanks for your suggestion; that's a very good choice; I heard it is definately better than the Rega cartridge. Bob