Quote Originally Posted by nightflier
Well the prospects for a linear tracking turntable don't look so good from what I'm reading here. I had hoped that they would actually be more convenient and trouble-free than standard tables. And I certainly can't afford a $3500 table. The hastle of owning and maintaining one of those or even the mainstream ones on eBay just don't look like they are worth the marginal improvement of linear tracking.

I think I will go back to looking for a standard turntable. Thanks for all the input.
One of the older magazines (I don't know which one anymore) found that because of the hysteresis in the feedback mechanism, tables with linear tracking tonearms were not in fact more accurate in alignment than a properly set up conventional tonearm.

There's nothing wrong with the better direct drive turntables compared to belt drive tables, so I would consider it a non-issue. With good TT's, the chief difference is in the tonearms.