After testing the water with a pair of Citronic PD1 direct drive decks, I chanced upon a pair of Technics 1210's for a very reasonable price through eBay.

They were second hand and perhaps 8 years old. I have now owned them for 2 and half years and they are as good now as they were back then.

Everything they say about 1210's is true. They are solid, pretty much unbreakable and they hold their pitch impecibily. There really is no excuse to not be able to beatmatch with them. The only annoyance is that as with pretty much every other record player, there is a "click" around the 0 pitch mark. A very short distance up and down from here results in the pitch going the opposite way to what you would think. Thankfully, you can ignore this by avoiding having records playing at this speed. Perhaps pitch up the tune already playing if the one you want to mix in demands to be played near 0. If you really hate this then you can either get it serviced by someone who can remove the 0 pitch click or you can get a pair of Mk3's for a similar price. The pitch on these moves smoothly from -8 to +8.

I am planning on selling these at some point and buying a brand new pair. I am a technophobe and will not be "upgrading" to any of this digital malarky. Technics all the way.

I have marked down the "features" as I would have preferred the 0 pitch click removed, as in the Mk3's. I really don't care though.