Opinion: Best turntable under $2000?

Doesn't have to be either/or. True transparancy doesn't add insult to injury and true warmth is only natural.

i don't know anything about the scheu tt's but i see one on another site's classified's,probably not allowed to mention them specifically.

To Piedpiper: Yeah, I know that. Just messing with Psychicanimal. We are all seeking (I think), musical fidelity, but we end up designing systems that color the music to what we "like" to hear", which may not be exactly what things sounded like, live.
But now that you have heard my "sonic preferences", does it help you make a turntable recommendation??

If it is still available at $1995 that Scheu Premier MkII is a very good deal. I have the Premier MkII with a Micro Seiki MA-505 tone arm and Dynavector 20XL cartridge. I also added the battery power supply option available from Hudson Audio. Made a big difference for the very modest price.

I prefer to start as clean and neutral as possible and accumulate any unavoidable but nonetheless chosen colorations downstream. A used Rega P7 would be a great simple clean machine but there are many other flavors of ice cream, logistically and sound wise, especially used, at that price. If you could score a used Maplenoll you'd be doing well if you don't mind complexity of air pumps etc.