Hang on sdrsdrsdr, Accuphase was very much alive back then and they made some awesome equipment. If I know the Japanese we were also not getting their best stuff. They hoard it for themselves. Woodworking sharpening stones are a great example. We get the garbage here. In order to get good ones you have to do business with a store there.
Most peoples experience when it comes to Hi Fi is anecdotal. They here some things in their own system and think it's gospel. An anecdote does not a study make. There are too many variables to be able to say much about anything except one individual prefers this over that. Multiple observers have to note the same characteristic over broad circumstances, multiple units etc.
Your Linn sounds better because it has a very small low torque motor far away from the cartridge and it is isolated from the environment by a suspension consequently far less noise gets to the stylus than any currently made DD turntable. It would be interesting to put a Monaco turntable on a MinusK stand to see what you get. But, the Japs never took isolation seriously. (that should raise some eyebrows) The Linn's problems are that it's suspension is not designed well and is poorly damped, the universal arm board is poor, as you mention tonearms are limited and lastly it has developed the silliest cult following. But, it certainly does sound better than any direct drive and we compared it to at least 10 if not more. There were weeks when we sold at least 10 LInns and we had 3 or 4 DD tables set up to compare it to. The DD turntables were selling the Linns for us. You just had to make sure the customer had a really stable location for the Linn or you could have an angry customer.
Vintage DD turntables are definitely not the way to go. There may be some new ones that are fine I do not know. There certainly is no Technics turntable that I personally would bother with. For the most part they just dusted off the old designs when vinyl came back and made up a bunch of new marketing to make people think they were buying a cheap turntable that was better than any of those high price belt drive things.
Most peoples experience when it comes to Hi Fi is anecdotal. They here some things in their own system and think it's gospel. An anecdote does not a study make. There are too many variables to be able to say much about anything except one individual prefers this over that. Multiple observers have to note the same characteristic over broad circumstances, multiple units etc.
Your Linn sounds better because it has a very small low torque motor far away from the cartridge and it is isolated from the environment by a suspension consequently far less noise gets to the stylus than any currently made DD turntable. It would be interesting to put a Monaco turntable on a MinusK stand to see what you get. But, the Japs never took isolation seriously. (that should raise some eyebrows) The Linn's problems are that it's suspension is not designed well and is poorly damped, the universal arm board is poor, as you mention tonearms are limited and lastly it has developed the silliest cult following. But, it certainly does sound better than any direct drive and we compared it to at least 10 if not more. There were weeks when we sold at least 10 LInns and we had 3 or 4 DD tables set up to compare it to. The DD turntables were selling the Linns for us. You just had to make sure the customer had a really stable location for the Linn or you could have an angry customer.
Vintage DD turntables are definitely not the way to go. There may be some new ones that are fine I do not know. There certainly is no Technics turntable that I personally would bother with. For the most part they just dusted off the old designs when vinyl came back and made up a bunch of new marketing to make people think they were buying a cheap turntable that was better than any of those high price belt drive things.