Is the Townshend Rock 7 "the" giant killer?

I have a Rock because it is THE table for the Decca/London cartridge. I feel a system should be assembled from the two ends towards the middle. I sometimes see a guy looking for a speaker to go with his amp, or a cartridge to go with his arm. Transducers first, and I don't care what Ivor says!

Bdp24- How is it to live with from an ease of use standpoint. I did hear from previous owner , that it was not quite a SET AND FORGET table. He found it had some idiosyncratic tendencies he could not live with. He had a version 7 with a Helius arm. He did not go in to detail. Sonically, he thought it was outstanding.

The Rock just requires one extra step in playing an LP---swinging the trough over the record, which is no big deal. The concern people have about the damping fluid in the trough spilling onto an LP is unwarranted---it's very thick and gooey, not thin and watery, so doesn't "slosh" out of the trough. The "paddle" (it's actually a hollow tube) that is submerged in the goo never leaves the trough, so it doesn't drip any goo onto LPs.

Ergonomically, the biggest inconvenience of the trough is it's being in the way of the stylus for 1- cleaning it, and 2- visually cueing it to a mid-LP groove (the beginning of a song in the middle of an LP side), which I rarely do.

If you really want to have damping in a pick-up arm (almost mandatory with Decca/London cartridges IMO), the headshell is the most efficient and effective place for it. I've read that the research and development of the original Cransfield Rock was predicated on it's use specifically with the Decca cartridges of the time, and it's design was influenced by the needs endemic to the cartridge. But what is good for Deccas/Londons is also good for other low-compliance cartridges.

As for not being a set & forget record player, sure, it's not like, say, a Rega. But neither is any other high-performance table; think about what owners/users of the Eminent Technology linear-tracking arm have to go through to maintain that arm's performance. In comparison to an ET, the Rock is a breeze!

Bpd24- Thank you, I appreciate that. Perhaps some of the issue he had was with the Helius arm. I'm sure it's a wonderful table. Someone described the sound as Master Tape like.

The whole LP/cartridge/arm/platter/table/phono-amp system is very resonant and microphonic. The Rock turntable is one approach to making it less so. Damping is and has been used in lots of LP playing products, usually tonearms, including SME, Well Tempered, and many uni-pivots. Damping incorporated into a table is far less common, and as far as headshell-located damping, the Rock is the only one I'm aware of. The Decca/London cartridge is probably the biggest challenge any tonearm can face, and the Rock a really effective partner to any arm with a Decca/London mounted on it.