Quote Originally Posted by Gromit View Post
Hard to say, Martin. It was a fair while ago. My Tecchy wasn't overly modded (TS HE psu/Vantage bearing & feet/KAB damper/Sumiko shell/Achromat) but I do seem to remember the Pioneer was on a similar level. The deck that beat both of them though was the Sony PS-6750. Doing a very brief comparison on the day, everyone else in the room came to the same conclusion, in fact it was a major and unexpected eye-opener. Should add the Sony wasn't even set up optimally - the cartridge was just balanced out, no re-alignment at all. Shame it had an earthing problem which I fixed on getting the deck home.

If a good 6750 came up now I'd sell the PL71 in a heartbeat.
Yup, the best Sony D/Ds are strangely not mentioned much. Experience tells me, that when Sony (figuratively speaking), sat back and said: 'right, we're going make this as good as we possibly can', the results were invariably stunning. The only problem with these types of T/Ts is availablity of spare parts, should anything major go pop. That's really the main reason (SQ aside) why the Techy is so popular: they can always be fixed, if necessary!