Direct drive vs belt vs rim vs idler arm

Actually, high precision bearings are not that expensive. Balls with sub micron tolerances can be purchased for pennies- even in ceramic and ruby. Shafts can be had very cheaply that are ground to high precision tolerances. That is the product of an industrial base that today produces robust machinery that lasts 10s of million to 100s of million cycles. The markup that an individual may pay for a bearing at retail is 10-100 times the price that a high volume manufacturer would pay. A good example are the ball bearings in my mower deck. The autoparts store wanted $55 each for these things and I needed 6 of them. I bought the exact same bearings at an online auction site- a pack of 12 for $22. A large volume manufacturer can probably get them for less than a dollar a piece. Think I got junk for $22? That was several years ago and these bearings have lasted just as long as the factory originals.
My tt has a hardened steel ball turning on a flat sapphire disc. It is not only very quiet, but would likely last for a billion cycles. At 33 1/3 rpm that is 57 years continuous running. My great great grandkids will be playing records on it.

Dear Tonywinsc: +++++ " So it is very likely that you could play a particular record one day and it seems to sound really great- pace is on and the music flows and the next time it sound kind of dead- all based on the randomness of the record position to the platter. " +++++

you are absolutely right and this problem is an important part of the non-perfect LP/analog medium.

The LPs that I use on my self evaluation audio item method are marked to lower that " problem " and be more consistent during different audio item evaluations.

In the past appeared a manual tool to center the LPs ( I think was named: Center-O-Disc or something like that. I remember it works fine. ) ) y used and I think I still have somewhere. Now that you brought this extremely important subject I will try to find out and test it again. I know I will have an improvement on quality performance level, no doubt about.

Other than that device the only serious attempt to elimate the off center LP problems was Nakamichi through its 1000 TT model and latter on with the Nakamichi TT Dragon.

I don't know how easy or hard is to the LP manufacturers to have their LPs with a " perfect " hole centered. Today we pay a lot of money for new LPs/reissues and the like but the LP manufacturers never fixed that problem and IMHO no one of them take care about.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Tonywinsc - my post was meant to imply the Bearing Design. Sorry for the confusion. The bearing being the part that is typically replaced.

TonyWinsc - My tt has a hardened steel ball turning on a flat sapphire disc. It is not only very quiet, but would likely last for a billion cycles. At 33 1/3 rpm that is 57 years continuous running. My great great grandkids will be playing records on it.

Oh I agree that all these tables will be around for our great great grandkids to use - if they want them.

When you say very quiet - what is this based on? What tables have you compared next to it in the same room/gear to make this statement?

By chance did these tables also have the same tonearm/cartridge on them as well going through the same gear?

How many years does a billion cycles translate to ? Is longevity of an affordable bearing your prime consideration?

These are not direct questions to you - just some considerations. I think when people come on forums and say something like "very quiet" it needs a reference, a standard that the personal opinion is based on.

I will just say this.

Sometimes, something needs to removed to be able to hear the difference it makes.

Cheers

Tonywinsc - 57 years continuous running bearing life - thanks.

just to recap for people that did not see my vid on rauls thread.....on how a good turntable will handle pulses from my finger which would be a thousand times more then any groove modulation!the kab strobodisk will show off this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB2TaN2FPRU

if your interested contact me

Lawrence
Fidelity Forward