LT-30 is a decent turntable. I bought one in very good shape for $500, which seems about right to me. However, I realized afterwards, mine lacks the factory dustcover which would be nice to have. I bought a second one for spare parts for $250, also lacking dustcover. I would not pay much more than $500 as there are other choices, and one should realize that linear tracking is not the end-all-be-all.
In general everything works well. Last week I spent some time covering the stainless arm tube and my replacement headshell (I use a Sumiko headshell) in hockey tape to reduce resonances, now I think it's pretty close to top class. As they were from factory, I think the arm is a bit too resonant and the arm mass slightly too low for my Dynavector Karat 17D3 cartridge.
Linear tracking removes some problems, doesn't help with others, and actually can some things slightly worse. The arm moves horizontally across the record in small spurts about once every 2-4 seconds. When I first got the table, there was a very slight noise when it moved (I could hear it in very very quiet room with no music playing). That noise has gone way, but I think this non-continuous movement changes the typical wow of the record in an undesirable way. I once used another linear tracking table, a Sony PSX-800, and its arm moved almost continuously, and I think that was better.
As background, you should know that virtually all wow (as in wow-and-flutter, wow is a slow speed change) from a record playing machine comes from the off-center record holes. You can see these in graphs produced by programs such as Dr Feickert's, and posted by Michael Fremer. Only the Nakamichi turntables have ever tried to eliminate that. Apparently we can tune it out mostly and it generates relatively little discontent among vinyl audiophiles nowadays, even though it's the #1 most easily measured fault of turntables.
This "normal" wow is up/down every 1/2 second and about 0.1%. Now imagine, somewhat unpredictably, there's a slight extra stretch every second or so. The movement of the LT-30 arm occurs right when the arm is at the innermost part of the wow, and slightly cancels the leading edge of that wow as the arm which was tending to the inside is now made straight. But it doesn't perfectly align with the normal wow, and makes it slightly irregular because it doesn't always happen at the exactly the same relative time.
This isn't a huge problem, because it's slightly lower than the normal wow which most audiophiles, even very picky ones, ignore. BTW, you can see this on a feickert-like graph of the wow and flutter as a slight irregularity.
It's for this sort of picky reason that LT-30 isn't my "ultimate" turntable. I'm working on several project turntables with may replace it, as would my PSX-800 if I could ever get that working again. One thing, among linear trackers, LT-30 is probably about as reliable as it gets, and one should be amazed if it even works at all after 36 years from manufacture. Good luck with that $200k Rockport or whatever.
