"House sound" of VPI, Clearaudio, Rega, MH, etc.

Continuing my quest. I found a dealer for VPI while traveling - unfortunately he was out of stock. He did have a Linn LP12 and a Rega P3 setup side by side, so I gave a listen to those.

Now, I've heard the Rega elsewhere - and with the PSU - was quite impressed at the price point.

He had the tables running through a Linn preamp, and a Mark Levinson amp driving B&W 801s in a fairly sizable room. They weren't out far enough, but it should have been okay. This is a dealer who claims to be expert in TT/cartridge setup. Unfortunately, I didn't have my records. Here's what I heard:
Very smooth, very quiet, very dark and no air or spatial presentation. The Linn was very marginally better than the Rega. Certainly not 5x the price better. I think the dealer was almost hurt by my reaction. Perhaps I have too much wax in my ears. But, the other presentations of the Rega were much better. He asked me to come back w/ my music. Both tables had comparable MM cartridges - a Linn and Rega Elys at the same price points.
So, what was wrong?

Could be the dealer likes it that way and works the set up to that end. Could be you like things bright. Could be the recordings.

Could be that you heard the truth, and it was wrong. Listen elsewhere.

Much of the worth of top tables is in the handling of them and how they appeal to your aesthetics. You could simply buy one that you seem to like now, or, drive or fly to a big city to actually handle and listen to them. In truth, if you pick VPI, Clearaudio, Rega, etc... you will not go wrong. Yes the sound ultimately will be a bit different for each, but you could live with any of them.