Good Direct Drives

A  relatively unknown DD turntable that is really excellent is the Sony PS 4300. It was marketed in Europe around 1976 and had a great following. It's rare to find it here in the states unless a GI brought one back after tour of duty. There may be a few sitting in closets somewhere. It competed with the likes of Pioneer, Sansui, Kentwood etc. It's a very reliable table with good credentials. 
I'm still using mine and have been for the last 42 years and am still thrilled by its performance.  And no its not for sale. It's in daily service. 
I did see some offered on European sites.

The Technics SL1200G is a better turntable than the Pioneer PLX1000.  This is not to say that one cannot enjoy the Pioneer or that it is "bad".  Two different price and performance categories.

Clearthink, You have swallowed hook, line, and sinker, the favored argument of those who prefer belt drive to direct drive or of those who make and sell only BD.  If it makes you happy, fine.

lewm"Clearthink, You have swallowed hook, line, and sinker, the favored argument of those who prefer belt drive to direct drive or of those who make and sell only BD."

No you are woefully misinformed and mistaken the statement I made was based on many years of actual testing regarding the performance of direct drive turntables and this testing is easily verified by others who might be so inclined as to conduct they're own testing of direct drive turntables they're problem is that they are always OFF SPEED as can be shown by the sawtooth plot of their speed accuracy. The problem is they run too fast so the servo slows them down then they run too slow so the servo speeds them up then they run too fast so the servo slows them down and it goes on and on and on they are almost never on speed! or you can just rely on anecdotal reports and be perfectly happy that is also fine.

Clearthink,  I can only speak to what I’ve actually heard, so my data set is small but you speak about the hunting of servo controlled DD TT’s as a bad thing. I guess that would depend on the degree of the hunting . I have a VPI Prime with the roadrunner and eagle control which controls the speed to 3 decimal places, but the third decimal place is always hunting for stability as well, but I can’t hear the effect, so why should it matter if servo DD motors do the same as long as it can’t be noticeably perceived?  Is there even a such thing as a perfect speed TT - I wouldn’t think so. 

Also I grant you that the Prime isn’t the “end all” belt driven TT but it’s no slouch either and it was $4k, so would the Prime be considered a serious TT?