i keep thinking i will buy a turntable as surprising amount of music i like is released on vinyl only but does any one have any recommendations? the Project DEBUT 3 or Marantz TT42 both look decent and are currently £120. i want to spend around £150-£200 so if anyone know's of anything better for playback and ripping in that price range please suggest them, i dont intend to use it for dj'ing or anything.

Also will i need to buy a a good stylus as well or should i expect them to come with a decent one? and will the MM phono stage in my amp be compatible? sorry for the daft questions but analogue is a whole new ball game to me.

Any chance of getting a used MMF5 for that range? I got mine for $300.

i can try and find out, is it worth getting a second hand MMF5 if its in my budget? how often do they die i dont want to buy second hand and have a motor go 6 moths down the line or something.

I could recommend to you a Technics vintage turntable. In my own experience they perform excellent.

This model is interesting: SL-Q303, the price is only 240 $.

Technical specifications:

Full-automatic
Wow & flutter: Only 0.025%
Rumble: -78 dB
Quartz Direct drive motor

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This model is interesting too, and more cheap...
SL-Q202, price: 220 $

Semi-automatic
Wow & flutter: Only 0.025%
Rumble: -78 dB
Quartz Direct drive motor

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I have 10 years using turntables, and I recommend those of direct drive motor. They are more precise, the direct drive motor have longer life; the speed variations are controlled and reduced by the servo mechanism electronic of the motor, and the rumble is reduced and very low.

Be careful about buying cheap turntables. A turntable is a mechanical device, and unlike electronics, mechanical devices haven't become cheaper to build in recent years. Good turntables require precision engineering, and that costs money. True, parts can be sourced from places like China at lower cost, but there's a limit. For any given budget, the less features on a deck, the more has been spent on getting the basic engineering right. So you should be looking for a completely manual deck, without any gizmos like pitch control, automatic arm return and/or shutoff, etc.

Given your budget, I'd look for a secondhand example of something really worthwhile, such as a Rega Planar 3 or Thorens TD160. The Thorens will be far more complicated to get set up correctly, and the arm it comes with could be an unknown. The Rega is a no frills manual deck with a spectacularly good pickup arm, and unless you know exactly what you're doing with a Thorens, it'll sound better. You'll probably notice that the Project looks surprisingly similar in design, but the Rega is the real deal.

Never trust the stylus on a secondhand pickup cartridge. If you can't get it professionally inspected, replace it.

As long as you don't get a moving coil cartridge (unlikely given your budget), your MM phono input will be fine.