Don't buy new unless you have to. Used deals are so much better, and don't freak out over warranty stuff. As has been mentioned, you can find almost any manual at the Vinyl Engine. Second, not much goes wrong with turntables. Cleaning out the bearing, refilling it with clean oil and a new belt are all most need, if they need anything. At most, you might need a new bearing (if it has a flat spot) but you can get one at any machine shop for $10-$20. Just take the old bearing in and tell them that you need a new one. They will know the exact size and will get one for you. Then you drop it into the hole and fill it up with oil. That's it.
By the way, I like to use Mobil 1 5W-30 synthetic for bearing oil. The same stuff you put in a car, and you can get a quart for about $6 at Sears. It'll last for years, too.
And you'll also have to spend some time getting the deck perfectly level, then setting up the arm and cartridge just right.
My first rig clocked in a little under $1,000. I found an armless Rega Planar 3 locally for $200. Next, I ordered a RB300 from
Brit Audio for around $300. My phono stage was a NAD PP2 I found for about $130, and my cartridge was a Grado Gold I grabbed off eBay for about $100. So, a little over $750 and I was really happy with the setup.
If I had to stretch it to $1,000, I'd skip the PP2 and go after a vintage Conrad-Johnson preamp. After getting the vinyl rig, I picked up a PV2 for around $300, and found that a significant upgrade over the PP2. The C-J PV2 has an all-tube phono stage that sounds excellent and has a couple of tape loops out, which makes it really easy to run a headphone amp off of it. Add a power amp, and you'll have a nice setup for driving speakers or headphones.
