Vintage Japanese DD Consult and Suggestions Please

@neonknight, Trust me, I have toiled over this decision and have considered other means and ways to hold onto the 301 in some form. I am resolved to any replacement, Denon or other, to pale in comparison as it relates to aesthetics...sonic performance will take precedence over how new or restored it looks. 

You can get a rebuilt DP80 off of yahoo auction japan through a service like buyee or others, just be aware that shipping costs are high.

a dk-110 or 300 can also be found there.

a dp75 motor unit could be an option, some say there is no sonic difference between the two. (I have never heard a 75) but you can get a 110 volt version. not so with the 80.

I have in various rooms, a Kenwood KD990, a Denon DP60L, a Denon DP47F, a Denon DP59L, a Denon 55K, and a JVC QL-Y7. Keep in mind, most all of this is original JVC technology with various bells and whistles. I also have a half a dozen various others "on ice." First, you have to decide if you want autolift. Then if you want play with various arms--such as the 55K lets you do (or the 80 you are considering) (I have a Unitrac on my 55K, perfect match I think) and if you want a lot of cartridge swapping. And what sort of cartridges. I like lightweight cartridges on most of the Denons. Such as Denon 303, or some MMs, or Grados. But, the 59 and 60 have swappable S-arms to let you use heavier, more modern cartridges. The JVC and Kenwood have removable headshells, as do some of the Denons. The Kenwood has a heavier effective mass arm allowing for some heavier modern cartridges. The Kenwood cuing, arm motion, and build are all very nice. I put it against an expensive VPI for 6 months and sold the VPI (the only belt table I've kept, among many, is the Merrill Superpolytable and a DIY one, both with smaller footprints). The 60, while not quite the arm of the 59, is a nice, steady performer. Footprint matters to me. The 47 and the 60 can get in tighter spaces. As for the JVC, I have a Benz Micro cartridge on it and it has played maybe 15 hours a week  for two years flawlessly, so if you get a good one I assume it will run well for a long time. Some of my many Denons I bought at bargain prices and those needed some form of minor tweaking. Intermittent buttons, or tonearm stickiness, or VTA adjustment/shimming, mis-calibrated VTF, all easily done in less than fifteen minutes. The others have been perfect for years.

Too bad Chakster is no longer on Audiogon as he was a wealth of information on older direct drive turntables and cartridges. You may want to look through his older posts, a wealth of information there.