Back in the day, the hot rigs consisted of a Gerrard turntable, a Pioneer or Marantz amp and speakers of your choice -JBLs if you could afford them. Jensen Triax car speakers inside a wooden box worked for me for a good long while.
I don't think Gerrard still makes turntables but, Audio Technica and lots of other companies still do. The cheapest new product today is probably better than anything we had back then.
While I respect your desires and reasons to go retro, in your shoes, I'd go with a minimal approach. Be apprised that vinyl was a pain in the butt. Repeated playing eventually wears the record out. The slightest smudge, fingerprint or dust accumulation makes audible noises and distortions. A slight scratch makes clicking/popping noises. It wasn't uncommon at all to re-buy an album due to damage or wearing it out. Manually lifting the tone-arm when you were drunk as a skunk put a quick end to many albums.
Vinyl was all we had and at considerable expense, we got pushed through the era of 8-tracks and cassettes. CD's came out in the early 80's and as soon as they became affordable, most folks recognized their versatility and jumped on the bandwagon. It's the longest run of an on-going format that's pretty decent and remains viable.
Ray
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