My first-ever record player was the Pioneer PL-112D. It was passed on to me from an older family member when they moved on to something more ambitious. My memories are of a solid budget belt-drive turntable with a nicely engineered S-shaped arm. The Pioneer came fitted with a Shure M75ED moving-magnet cartridge, which was a suitably decent partner for the deck.
The cartridge worked well; however, I was afflicted with the hi-fi upgrade bug at the time, and couldn’t resist the urge to swap the Shure for something that I thought was better. That something turned out to be Nagaoka’s legendary MP-11. It cost £18 at the time.
