Lewn, darling. Do the sums properly. I can see the price of the Technics SL-1000R as £18,999 at two UK dealers. The list price of £25,098 for the full Klimax LP12 less £6,050 for the Exstatik cartridge and £3,115 for the Urika phono stage works out at £15,933. That is considerably less than the Technics on a like for like basis.
And you could save another two and a half grand on the LP12 by substituting the standard Radikal for the machined one. Linn say that has no effect on sound quality.
Personally, I don’t care whether a turntable has direct or belt drive. I doubt if most Linn aficionados, as you call them, that I’ve met would even know the difference.