turntable recommendations for a vinyl newbie...

Turntable is a bad idea. You gotta start searching the used vinyl bins at Goodwill. Getting all that BLACK MOLD all over you, your clothes and on the ones you take home, into your toilet (forever, and ever), and lungs. I never HAD black mold until I bought a collection of used classical LPs. Then I had black mold. I still have it. Once you get it, it's yours for life.
Then you gotta worry about the cartridge, and the needle.
Oops snagged that sucker, $500. down the drain in a flash.
Have to reinforce the house foundation, when you walk across the floor the record skips.. $30,000. for the work.
Then you got storage for those LPs. soon they will take over ANYPLACE you put them. You will have to buy new shelves.. more new shelves... shelves that can actually carry the 20,000 pounds of LPs.. Your evicted from your apartment because your LPs are causing the ceiling below to buckle (true story, but not mine)
Then you gotta complain about the ticks, pops, and scratchiness, and buy a $1,000 cleaning machine that will make you deaf in a week, to clean the damn vinyl.
You will become furtive, and bang into the other person browsing YOUR favorite place to buy records. You will not apologize.. after all, they are YOUR secret stash place to buy rocords.
Run while you can... You are a CeeDee person.. you will never be happy with a TT. It is a bad dream.
The upside is all those folks buying TTs and stuff FOR THE FIRST TIME, when they sour on it, are gonna sell all that stuff for cheap and use old timer LP crazies wil LAUGH.

I really appreciate the thoughtful responses.

I supposed what I'm trying to do right now, is see if this (vinyl) is something I want to pursue... It sounds like only 1K may not give me a honest evaluation?

My initial budget estimate is not set -- my thought process is; it has taken me alot of $$$ to settle on a digital set up that did not sound digital - dare, I say analogue - inother words, not bright or edgy / relaxed, natural in tonal character, attack and decay, and so on... But, sense vinyl is already analogue than maybe the investment would be comparatively less -- anyway, obviously an inexperienced thought process.

So back to the topic - my Atma-Sphere MP3 now has the phono stage in it and I have someone who will teach me how to set up the table. I do have several records, saved from my youth and a few more that has come my way over the years - not "audiophile" records but good examples none the less. All in all, I have around 30. Not anywhere near the thousands of CDs I have, but I figure it would be nice to pick up some of the older Jazz and Big Band stuff I like that has never been issued on CD - which is where my true interest stems from. I am unwilling to reproduce my CD collection in vinyl, I'm simply too deep in (same goes for the computer audio stuff).

If I were you I would look into 'hi rez' digital downloads. A more realistic forward looking 'new thing'
It's my next promising thing to look into.

Lenco 75..... watch for them on the gon they are suppose to be a great bang for the $$$, try to get one that Jean Nantais has re done.. just a thought

I think $1000 would give you a "taste" of vinyl, it just won't sonicaly compare with what you have. I had a $300 Music Hall TT which absolutely was more "enjoyable" than my then digital rig, a $6500 MF TriVista SACD player (now a $6500 paper weight BTW). It cetainly did not sound better, but was more musical to my ears. As a result I have a much better TT now, inspired by this revelation. YMMV.