BSR 2260 AG Professional TT - any thoughts?

Vinyl Engine has many BSR manuals. Most of the mechanisms (apart from the X10 series) were quite similar even if not identical, so if you find a table that looks like yours, the manual may be just fine for any problems you encounter.
It's easy to overstate how bad these tables were - most (again, apart from the X10 series) had fairly audible rumble, and the arms weren't particularly low friction, but they were reliable, and didn't damage records. Most buyers would not be the least bit likely to spend more money on a table, so doing a pretty good job at playing records was perfectly satisfactory. And for people who don't take any care with records, a changer may end up protecting them more than a table that requires lots of handling.
Obviously, I agree with those who protest that the 810, 610, 510, and any other in the series were different, and better, than the average BSR. Their mechanism is dramatically different from that of any other changer, and while it may, in fact, have great advantages over the more normal mechanisms, its unfamiliarity to repair people (and apparently the people who built them to begin with) means than they had some teething problems, and getting them fixed was a major challenge. On the positive side, if it works now, it probably will work for a good long while.
I have an 810 which works nicely and sounds good. Not better, I don't think than Dual/Miracord/PE/Garrard, but not worse, either.

why does BSR turntable not so famous as Garrard, for instance?
 
Garrard was in business long before BSR, and, in much of the world, was the company that introduced high quality reproduction. Their best products, the 301 and 401, were, and are, outstandingly fine tables, and even if the mass market products weren't the top of the line by the later 60s or the 70s, they could still produce innovative and exciting tables like the Zero series.
BSR, on the other hand, positioned itself almost solely as a mass market product, sold under many names, and with many minor changes, none of which actually added up to top quality. They were durable, reliable, and not bad, and they sold in unbelievable quantities. I'm sure management was perfectly happy with that approach. Only when the price of better tables started coming down, and when changers started becoming less popular, was there any reason to tinker with the approach.
Both companies fell prey to high labor costs, and a drastically changing market, but both had a good run.
 
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