To each their own. I own a very nice turntable made in Germany that has great specs. I also own an American made entry-level turntable with lesser specs. I also own a (gasp!) Fluance RT81 made in (gasp again!) China. They sound different, sure, but I cannot hear any difference in speed or wow or flutter between them, so whether or not a 40 year old Japanese turntable has better specs is of no import to me, and I frequent these forums. I can assure you that almost all customers out there buy these Chinese machines and are very happy with them. In no way is it up to you whether these specs are acceptable, as that's what the larger market is for. Don't buy one, preach all day about their inferiority, nobody beyond a few hundred on these forums cares. Like I said, AT et al would offer better specs if the market called for them.
I still am not convinced that these are hearable differences that we're talking about, for the average user, the user that AT is marketing to at this point. I just spent the entire afternoon A/B-ing my Marantz TT-15 back and forth with my U-Turn Orbit, including rock, jazz, piano, horn instrumental, symphony, listening carefully for speed, sustain on piano notes, granularity, any differences I could hear. In the end, they both sounded great to me. Neither produced W&F that I could hear, even on difficult sustains in piano and trumpet. It's amazing how good the Orbit acquits itself against a machine in a completely different market segment. The differences in these turntables are just not that great IMO.
Maybe you're a super golden ear, or perhaps there is some other issue, but if you don't like products manufactured in China, well, you're out of luck. I would bet money that most of the "things" in your life that have been purchased in the last 15 years are made in China. Lastly, if the larger consumer market calls for new turntables with better specs, those same Chinese factories will start churning them out in short order.
