I have two Sterns in the shorter part of my basement which is a hair under 77". You can just barely bring the heads up or down (if I remember right they scrape/push the tiles). You cannot flip the playfields all the way against the backboxes, which can be a pain. If I need to do any major surgery, I need to remove the back legs and bring the whole machine down a bit on my lift table. It's a pain, but it works. I had a DE Jurassic Park and was unable to put it on that side of the basement.

The other side of the basement is only slightly higher...79"-80" or so (uneven floors and worse uneven drop ceiling). I can at least lift the playfields in most places...I usually scrape the ceiling tiles and sometimes have to pop them up. That old DE JP fit but the flasher domes on top of the head literally rested on the ceiling!