jb,
Good turntable does not need any warranty, and by large, if you are going to re-wire the thing (or do anything else as DIY project) most of those guys will tell you that your warranty is done at that point. BTW, on < $300 tt, shipping and packing connected to warranty issues could run you over the price of the table…
Do you have any dealers around you? They always have interesting used pieces taken on trade-in, and most of those have some improvements already done. And when time comes, you can bring them back same TT as a down payment for better thing, without losing too much – and in some cases without losing any money.
Technics vs. Dual vs. Thorens vs. Denon etc. is very subjective thing, if Thorens is any entry level TT. Most of those TTs were DJ’s favourite, made to withstand nuclear attack, and all do sound very good for the money. Denon made very good carts, but I can’t tell you anything for the table. I do not like any Direct Drive, and the main reason is vibration.
If you want something brand new, there is trade-off in quality – most of those old tables are built better, with better materials. They were built better because at that time, market was highly competitive place regarding turntables – there were no CD players yet.
Some people would claim that this new cheap plastic will perform better than anything made 20 or 30 years ago – if nothing else, because of the age, but being involved in some aspects of field engineering testing, I would beg to differ. One more: most of the old TTs are very well taken care off.
Do you have MM / MC input on your receiver, or just MM?
If you buy USB table for < $300, I am sure you’ll regret that decision. It is better to feed the signal from your pre (you should have pre-out on your HK) into your laptop, and simple software (analog to .mp3) is free on internet.
Good luck and let us know what you did.