My first good player 40 some odd years ago was a Dual automatic but I was made to feel guilty with all those extra mechanisms the more I read the 'zines so I went pure manual with the next one (and my current one 30 plus years later... I'm not complaining about simple durable mechanisms).
However, there were moments afterwards, those many years ago, where I do remember this not being particularly worth audio "purity" during romantic interludes and trying to keep the mood going when that brief album side went into the painful run-out groove sound....much prefer my digital playlists to keep from having to jump up and change records.