What makes for a "great" turntable?

There was a interview with A.J. Conti from Basis Audio in TAS I think.
He says it all.

Three things make it great: transient speed stability, isolation from external vibration, and ability to drain off internal vibration generated by motor & platter bearing. Few turntables get all three things right, and some of the top models that do, succeed by addressing the problem with an integrated plinth and rack system.

clio...friggin great stereo...fyi, I lived with beautiful goldman studio(which cost more than the car i drove at the time)along with my humble oracle paris, and my thorens jubilee. considering what i paid for it, it (in practical terms)cost me about 250 bucks everytime i played an lp. between that, and a neverending battle to make it sound superior to my blue collar tables, i gave up and sold it. eventually got a nice car though.

It depends what you are looking for. Good quality and convience, the older automatic dd tables could fit that category especially the longivity of those tables. For me, a great table is one that you do not realize its there when the music is playing. Imo, high mass is part of the equation. I have been experimenting with the maplenoll tables compared to my michell over the past couple of years and find the maplenoll comes closer to my definition of a great table. As I have found one of the maplenoll tables that have the heavier plinth and platter (about 150 lbs of mass) i will be able to compare two heavy mass tables to see how much extra the mass brings to the quality.

Thanks Jaybo, it took a while to get there. I've moved backwards in time in the turntable world. However, the Beogram 4500 is still "newer" (manufactured from '89 - '93 IIRC) than all the cars I've owned in my life, all of which came from the 60's and 70's, save my current daily driver, an'84 Porsche Carrera.