Why hasnt a turntable manufacturer produced a table with automatic tonearm return/shutoff?

High end turntables are focused on the absolute best possible sound, adding a mechanical device to lift and/or return adds noise and reliability problems. 

 

Why not of great interest to audiophiles. An add on to a top end table?? The convenience is substantial.  

@kavakat1 I don't see a substantial convenience or really any convenience of substance. When a record ends I cue the arm and return it to the arm rest. No big deal. It takes all of two seconds or so. OTOH: adding a mechanism and logic to the turntable for auto-return of the arm just increases cost unnecessarily, and adds moving parts that can resonate, vibrate and introduce unwanted noise into the system. The added complexity just isn't worth it. And it's not going to damage your stylus if it plays the runout groove for a bit until you get up and cue the arm.

I had a Denon dp 300f laying around and my niece expressed interest in vinyl. She was happy with it, but she didn’t like the fact that it automatically started and returned the tonearm. Some kind of hipster thing. 

I own a Thorens TD-1601.  Git you one!

Thorens makes a few semi-auto turntables:

https://www.thorens.com/en/products/thorens-td-1601.html

“The convenience is substantial” only if your listening session is limited to one side of one LP. Otherwise you’re going to get up anyway either to play the second side or a different LP. The stylus riding in the runout grooves is not harmed if you don’t immediately lift the tonearm and shut off the platter rotation.

When I was a young man this was an important issue for me.  So much so that it swayed me to buy a Rabco SL-8E arm when that was considered state of the art.  It did lift at the end of play I'll give it that much.  I also bought a Mitsubishi EC-1, which is still kicking I believe.  I gifted it to a starving college student a few years ago.  I'm not sure why or when this feature stopped being important to me.  Probably the CD introduction did it.  When I just want to kick back with music as a back drop like right now, I just pop in a CD.  When serious listening is the priority then needing an automatic arm is not necessary or even desirable quite frankly.

I’m familiar but the table keeps turning. Still have to turn it off.  It’s half the solution. 

There’s a product called Tru-Lift that can be added to turntables that automatically lifts the arm at the end of play

Why not of great interest to audiophiles. An add on to a top end table?? The convenience is substantial.  

I’m sure such a device exists. The problem is you don’t read about them because they’re not of much interest to audiophiles.