Naim introduce a turntable - the Solstice Special Edition

@lewm , I did own a TD124. It was my first real turntable (excluding my two Zenith bug eyed specials). You are probably right to like it least of all.
It was however, a boat anchor. You could probably drop it off a 10 story roof top and not hurt it. 
Every turntable in commercial use was used to slip que. The enemy of radio is "dead air." You had to know exactly when a song was going to start to the 1/2 second. What the DJ did was place the tonearm down on the record with the turntable off, "jockey" the record back and forth until he found the beginning of the song, hold the record in place with two fingers on the rim of the record and start up the turntable. At the exact moment he wanted the song to start he took his fingers off the rim. 
By design, the limited torque of a belt drive turntable made this maneuver impossible. You were supposed to slip the record on a felt mat but that created tons of static. Many DJs like me (campus radio station) just held the rim of the platter and let the idler do the slipping. Great way to tear up an idler drive. Direct Drive cured that problem but my DJ career would end long before it came around. The Idler drive was not designed specifically to slip que. It was simply the best way at the time to have multiple speeds on a turntable. Electronic motor drives were way off in the future. The AC synchronous motor running on line frequency was it.
All of the changers of the day used it. I'm not sure but I don't think there ever was a belt drive changer. Not enough torque to drive the changer mechanism. Direct drive put and end to idler wheel tables in commercial use. Audiophiles had drifted over to belt drive tables as the old idler wheel tables were noisy as all get out. The Thorens TD 125 was the turntable to have in the early belt drive era.

Nice one @mijostyn

My bad for not understanding what you meant by the term slip Q. If you had written it out C U E, I might have gotten the point. I thought you were referring to the fact that some early idler drive turntables, like the grease bearing Garrard 301, and possibly like some versions of TD124, had braking built into the platters so the motor had something to work against.  My response was that not every idler drive relied upon such a braking system to keep constant speed. Anyway, why are you talking about disc jockeys and record changers? I did own a TD125 for several years as my only TT. Very attractive and modern looking. Performance OK. It was very de riguer in its day. Some malign it for unreliable electronics in retrospect.

pani, define “belt drive-ish flow”.

There has always been a "simple elegance" in the design of NAIM components of the past

But I do not see anything "elegant" about this TT - simple yes - it is simply a big round lump on top of a rectangular lump - with an arm stuck on the side

And it's a "Limited Edition" - thank goodness

aesthetically -  I find it very disappointing, even boring, especially for such an expensive TT.

Just wondering if it performs better than it looks?

Still - beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Just another opinion :-)

Look at the bright side. It seems that every major name in audio wants to have a turntable in their line-up. This is a very good thing as it demonstrates how strong vinyl is. And this despite the loss of the World's only full-scale master-plate plant. The industry is finding ways to meet consumer demand for vinyl and the miniscule companies that cater to us 2% of the consumer world who obsess over quality are finding opportunities to sell expensive turntables. 
We 'mercans have very short memories (other than mijostyn evidently). Just 20 years ago Japan was almost single-handedly keeping the faith on vinyl. They were the ones continuing to manufacture cartridges, tonearms, SUT;s, and tweaking vintage decks.