Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

@lewm    LOL.   Dust cover bad karma.  I need to burn it at the stake😊
  Yea, pretty sure it will be in storage very soon.

Seems like I'm collecting vintage turntable's,  I just obtained the pioneer pl-550 direct drive table,  I already have the technics sl-1600mk2, can anyone tell me much about the pioneer?, at the moment,  the technics seems to be in a whole league of it's own with performance compared to the pioneer. 

Audiolabyrinth, Unless your turntables have a known history of having been serviced recently, I suggest you may want to replace all the electrolytic capacitors in both, and then have a competent technician calibrate the drive systems.  That's the only way you can be sure you are getting the most out of them, although if they operate without noticeable issues, you're probably OK.  One thing I've observed is that the market values of mid-level vintage DD's like your two is not much below what you would have to pay for the really top quality ones.  For example, you can find Denon DP80s or DP75s for less than a thousand dollars.  Another good one is the Kenwood KD550, which seems to be easy to find for around $500.  You might also luck out and find a Victor TT101 for under $1000; that would be a great bargain, but they are rare outside of Japan. Yamaha GT2000 is another one to look for.  Between one and two thousand $, you can hope to find a Technics SP10 Mk2.  I'd actually rank the DP80, TT101, and GT2000 slightly ahead of the SP10 Mk2, certainly its equal.  Well, you said you were "collecting"...

Hi lewm,  Thankyou for your informative post,  I will seek all of them out you listed,  although, I didn't know kenwood made a good turntable,  I'm also collecting vintage reciever's,  integrated amp's,  etc...

"I didn't know kenwood made a good turntable".
The KD550 is a fine one, on par with the DP60L, perhaps.  I didn't mention the L07D, which is up there in the pantheon of the really great vintage direct-drives, like the SP10 Mk3, Pioneer Exclusive P3, etc, but those are way up in cost.  You can find a very nice L07D for between $3K and $4K.  The good news is that it is sold as a unit with a very advanced plinth, even by today's standards, and a very good tonearm, designed for and specially adapted to the L07D.

Kenwood made a whole series of components in the L07 series (amplifiers, preamplifier, tuner) that were very high end (and expensive) in their day, comparable to the Pioneer Exclusive line of gear.