Our friends at Pro-Ject have attacked this by taking their incredibly well-made X1 and X2 turntables, giving them a fully balanced design, and offering their moving coil phono preamps in a balanced version. This is just super cool! Hearing a fully balanced turntable rig is spooky good, as the noise floor on a good pressing is just so much lower than you ever imagined.
The great news is you can gradually step into this concept! The Pro-Ject X2 is a massive 22-pound table with a 4.5-pound acrylic platter and a 9” carbon fiber tonearm. You’ll be able to get it running right out of the box with the premounted Sumiko Rainier MM cartridge. When you are ready to make the move to fully balanced, you can choose just about any moving coil cartridge on the market as the tonearm is fully adjustable, then purchase a Pro-Ject balanced cable and choose from any of the balanced phono preamps.
You can start out for well under $2,000 with an X2B, knowing you can take your vinyl playback performance to a whole new level when you are ready.