What you're planning SMEE is perfect and make sure you spend as much as you can on a decent cartridge. You cannot go wrong with a rega turntable and arm. Of the two arms I recalll, 250 & 300, one has a fixed headshell which I think is better.
Rega arms are excellent and very good value for money.
I used to be into hi fi big time but not so much these days although i still have a half decent system and play vinyl all the time.
At present, I have a systemdeck with a linn basic arm, an Arcam 7 cd & tuner and a nice old Naim nait amp. I am presently trying to pick up, on e bay, a paif of Morduant Short ms902i's speakers. I have dennon's at the moment which are actually very good. I swapped them for a listen of an old pal's linn kann's last weeknd and neither of us noticed much difference??!
Good luck!