I've read some pretty funny reviews from pissed off former owners of the HK linear tracking tables. Funny and former because after the tonearm auto-lifted and scratched a high end record, it got tossed out the window. I didn't even realize technics made a linear tracker, I thought Harman Kardon/Rabco was the unit to get. Never had any interest in anything Technics after I replaced a direct drive model 3 tables before the T65C. I wasn't wild about that direct drive because it rumbled so much. I know Technics is hugely popular and you can find many repaired and modified on the web. And I'm sure they're better now than whatever model I had way back then.
I stuck with the HK all these years mainly because I had no reason to replace it. Of all the turntables between my friends and I, the HK sounded the best. In fact two of my friends bought T60's after hearing mine. I repaired my T60 recently because it would have cost me more than $2500 to replace it with something similar new.
Another turntable from back in the day I had my eyes on was The AR. There's a lot of them around, and very modifiable. One site specializes in repairing, modifying and selling AR tables. He also works on Thorens and has a chronological history of their production models. AR and Thorens are nice because you can change tonearms, but now you're talking big dollars. Linn Sondek is supposed to be pretty good, in fact, the HK T60 is often called the "poor man's Linn". I saw the underside of one once, and boy did it look like my T60. Tonearms were even designed by the same guy.
That said, you can find a T60 on ebay for $250 or less if you are patient. The T65C is harder to come by, I've only seen 2 in the past year, and I bought one of them for $300. I liked it so much I gave my T60 to my son, keep it in the family type thing.
Read up on the T60, you'll never see a bad review. It's a great value, and keeps holding it's value too. Thorens is good, but you have to get the right one. I wouldn't mind an AR if I could modify it. I almost bought an AR way back then, but it didn't have the auto lift and shutoff. The HK was the only one that did.
