My Turntable Collection.....

Tobaccoleafpie, I was just setting one up, so this is a little diversion for me. I will now expose what a retro hermit I am:
Rega P3 (modified)
Rega Planar 25
Thorens TD-2001
Harman/Kardon T65C
Harman/Kardon T55C
Harman/Kardon hk720
Denon DP-62L
Denon DP-60L
Kenwood KD-750
Kenwood KD-650 (two of 'em)
Kenwood KD-5070
Technics SL-1200mk2

I had been a closet audiophile since around 1975, but my paper route and saving for a car was not compatible with acquisition of the high-end Kenwood equipment that I lusted for. I bought a quality cassette deck and integrated amp, built some acoustic suspension speakers, and taped all of my friends' LPs. This was my system until I met my wife-to-be in college. She and I thought that H/K
gear was really classy and built a system together, which rotated between my and her apartments. This one system served until I completed graduate school and began acquiring the stuff I had wanted that whole time.
As can be seen, I equally enjoy heavy japanese direct-drives and neoclassic belt-drives. You will obseve that about half of my tables have auto-lift, which I consider essential-- There's nothing worse than being totally relaxed by the last 23 minutes of music, half a glass of good cab still in the glass, and deciding whether to let the stylus grind away in the lead-out groove. The KD-5070 is fully automatic and is interesting in that Kenwood used two motors to drive the heavy platter and arm mechanism separately-- sound quality does NOT suffer.

retro rules

Morgenholz: Can you tell me why vintage tables frquently have cue down failure? I have about 7-8 linear tracking retro tables. All Japanese i believe but two are OEMed Sherwoods. Of the lot I can rely on 3. My best are in permanet arm up freeze. They are a Technics SL-10 and a Nikko that is as heavy as a tank.
I just don't understand they all work fine for a short while then have this problem.
To address the orginal poster I say if you like it who cares. It is your ears and mind that matter not someone elses. That aside my retro tables at the moment are dormant . I use semi acceptable to the High end crowd TTs. I am not a died in the woll vinylphile. The sound is great but what a pain! without automatic lift or stacking. The sound in my case is better with the latter day TTs I think it's the cartridges mainly. It could also be all the mumbo jumbo technical Wow and Flutter being damped to death.

Mechans, I really like the design of vintage linear trackers, but have avoided them for the reasons that you state. My only experience is with the very cheap, disposable ones that use P-mount cartridges, which are fine on consumer-grade systems and always seem to work well. The only thing I can suggest is to find a tech who also likes linear trackers-- I once knew one who used a high-end one as his only table and kept it maintained.