Having been around all those years, I agree with the OP that most of what was popular in the heydey of vinyl was mediocre. Thorens floaters were an exception…basically AR done better. Before Linn hit the scene German rim drives were the standard…Dual, Miracord, PE. But in the esoteric background there were Garrard 301s, Rek-O-Kut, Weathers. Then Panasonic launched the SP10, and many others dove into Direct Drive. Denon and Luxman also made some very good ones, as did JVC. These are still credible if given adequate vibration decoupling and properly matched with cartridge. The midfi is still meh. Then too, there was B&O, did anyone here ever use a TX2 with MMC2? At my store, the gold standard setup was a B&O table with an MMC3, a Nakamichi cassette deck, a Yamaha or Nakamichi receiver, and a/d/s/ speakers, all day long.
What's all the fuss about late 70s and earl 80s run of the mill midfi turntables?
My first table was a Garrard SL95-B. It was really nothing to sing about and you had to pay extra for the plastic base. I graduated from that to a Philips GA 212. Thank God it was located on a concrete slab floor. Still nothing special. Then on to a Sony 2251 LA with an SME 2009 tonearm. This was a real upgrade with an Ortofon MC20 cartridge and transformer. I thought I was doing that thing in tall cotton. Then I met Russ Goddard at The Audible Difference in Palo Alto. He told me to bring my setup to his store and we would do a little A-B comparison. After listening for only a minute or two it was obvious My Sony was not any way near a Linn LP 12 of that time. Anyway the point is most of the common tables from people like Garrard, Dual, Marantz, were just imposters to the real thing. I hold no nostalgic emotion to those tables. I was foolish enough to sell my Linn setup when the writing was on the wall around 1999 regarding vinyl. Big mistake!! I sold all my vinyl, my table with an Ittock arm arm and audio technica OC-9 shibata. A SOTA MC Head Amp designed by John Curl (a collectors item today) for $1000.00. Lock me up. I had every cartridge of the day, Koetsu, Supex, GAS, Fidelity Research. My 2 year old son tore the stylus off my Sleeping Beauty Shibata accindently.