I bought a pair of Technics 1210 Mk2s[1] back in 1996 and gigged them 2 or 3 nights a week for about 4 years.

They still run exactly like new and are about the most reliable machines I own.

I have a few tips for anyone getting to turntable DJing:

  1.  Feedback from speakers is picked up[sic] through both L and R channels but is inverted on one of them, I forget which.  Combining the channels as mono cancels it out, a bit like active noise cancelling.  If you have a mixer with a mono/stereo switch it's easy to test this out by tapping the deck as it's playing.  Stereo depends on fixed listener position relative to speakers anyway so almost never miss it in a venue.  

  2.  If you really want the effect (including very high record wear and poor sound quality) of a straight tonearm you can angle your cartridge outwards on the headshell.

  3.  You're probably going to turn the bias to zero so that your arm doesn't jump off the record when you back cue.  However, if you ever have record that skips at particular spot when playing, either due to a bit of dirt or damage, you can turn bias back on for a moment and the stylus will usually ride past it just fine.  When you're playing in front of a crowd that's a handy get out of jail card.

  4.  For DJing you'll want a spherical stylus as it will track better when moving the record backwards.  You can get better sound quality from an elliptical stylus if you're just playing or recording from vinyl though.  The absolute best sound quality is from a stylus shaped like a record cutting lathe tip but never ever use that for DJing.

  5.  Clean your stylus.

1. A 1210 Mk2 is basically a dark grey 1200 Mk2 but they always come dual voltage which I think is not always the case for 1200s depending on where you bought them.