Best vintage DD turntables from the 70's and 80's?

I'm sure that is what we were told by the Luxman rep; that Teac manufactured the motors to Luxman's specifications. Having said that, I am not sure that it is true. For some reason the owners frowned upon sales folks disassembling expensive gear.

But it does make sense. The PD-441/444 motor does bear more than a passing resemblance to that used in the original Teac TN-400.

Serviced PD-441 this guy claimed the motor is made by Mitsubishi , here is the video. 
Before that several member of this forum claimed it could be made by Victor, Micro, or even by Teac. 

Lewm, I don't have any first hand evidence, but this is claimed on numerous forum discussions and websites, including vintageknob. I shouldn't have stated it as fact the way I did, but there is at least some circumstantial evidence. According to vintageknob the Nakamichi TX-1000 was also built by Micro to Nakamichi's specifications. As for 'some' Luxmans, the PD-300, 310 and 350 belt drives were almost certainly built by Micro (hard to miss considering the many design similarities), but it might be the case with the PD-444 direct drive as well. 

Also according to the vintageknob there were only a handful of manufacturers of DD motors at the time, which were used by all Japanese brands. Micro was basically a precision mechanical engineering company, so it is very unlikely they built DD motors or speed control electronics themselves.

I remember reading a TAS article some years ago describing the Japanese audio ecosystem, which over many decades evolved into a network of companies and designers closely working together. So plenty of overlap indeed as Totem395 suggests. It would be interesting to read a history some day on how this ecosystem operated and who were the designer teams responsible for the top DD tables we hold so dear.

best-groove, I did include Denon DP100M.  I left off the Nakamichi turntables, because many say that apart from the brilliant LP centering device, they are not such great performers, but I would put ONE on the list of the very best, if you like.  As for EMT, they are not Japanese, and again, please pick ONE for this exclusive list.  Was the 950 the best of that lot?

Matsushita was a Japanese giant that bought the majority share of Victor starting in 1953 but pretty much let Victor (JVC) run itself. Victor was a big engineering firm, they are the ones that designed and built the very first quartz locked direct drive motors and later went on to design and build high end video gear. JVC was a pioneer and at the technological forefront of many technologies.
I think it’s safe to assume that Matsushita was the manufacture of the motors that Victor used as well as Technics. They would have been used in most if not all of the Micro Seiki product line as well. Micro Seiki was a precision machine shop/manufacturing facility, not really into electronics.
Technics was a marketing name made up by Matsushita to sell consumer electronics, it’s not hard to see where they got the technology to build their quartz locked direct drive tables from.
Someone really needs to tie all of these Japanese company’s history together. Many of the people that know are already gone and the rest are elderly. A few years ago I read a lengthy article where a writer had done a lot of research and had stitched together a lot of it but it had a lot of unanswered questions remaining. Now I can’t remember where I read it.
If anyone remembers that, could you please post a link to it? Thanks
BillWojo

  I left off the Nakamichi turntables, because many say that apart from the brilliant LP centering device, they are not such great performers,

There are too many variables in judging the sound of turntables especially as regards the combinations of the cartridge and the arms as well as the quality of these; it's hard to think and believe that anyone can recognize how a turntable sounds if they don't transfer arm and cartridge between one base and another to make comparisons.
It is likely that the TX1000 is complicated to repair in the event of a fault, but that someone may point out that it is nothing exceptional, I repeat the above.
The title indicates the best vintage DD without indicating the nationality, for this reason I have reported the Emt.