2. analog
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My personal experience with Direct Drive versus Belt Drive

This is my personal , yet limited experience, with a DD versus Belt Drive. This A/B took place in the same system. with literally the same tonearm. I am choosing not to mention brands at this point. I feel by keeping the brand out of the discussion, anyone who contributes to the the thread (myself included), can be a bit more forthcoming. I am not big on audiophile jargon, so I will keep this short and sweet. I started with DD, in a system which I was very familiar with. The room of course, was different. The DD struck me as near perfect. I could hear the starting and stopping on a dime, and the near perfect timing that many have associated with the DD.  It didn't take long at all for me to conclude this was not my cup of tea. It satisfied my brain, but didn't move my heart. Maybe I was used to the imperfect sound of belt drives, and it was indeed that imperfection, that made for an emotional experience. Who knows? (-: Fast forward to the belt drive.... Again, same actual arm. It sounded more analog to me. Decay was much more easy to hear, along with subtle spatial cues. Was it the less than perfect timing, that was allowing me to now hear these things I could not with the DD?  I have no clue! What I was sure about was the emotion of the music had returned.
fjn04
jollytinker
213 posts
 
So if you read between the lines maybe you would ask yourself. Can you make electronics stabilize a motor on lighter platter (speed/noise/etc) as well or better than a massive belt driven platter.

I think the short answer is Yes, at least for me. I switched from a standard belt drive VPI motor (high RPM) to a Teres Audio Verus II motor on my VPI Aries 1 TT.  The Verus II uses what they call "direct coupling" - essentially an idler wheel set up or Rim Drive. There's low vibration due to a non-cogging multi-phase motor, and high torque without the 'give' of a rubber belt.  The improvement was drastic and I immediately put the old belt-drive motor in the closet, and haven't looked back. 


I've always wondered (well, over the last few years since I've gone down the Audio rabbit hole) whether belt drives achieved prominence in the 80s in part because of the relative deficiencies of other parts of the turntable at the time. So that more recent improvements in cartridges, plinths, tonearms, vibration control, motors, etc., have made the inherent damping in a belt drive system less necessary, and fueled the return of idler wheels as a technology that was never fully 'realized' in its heyday.  Just a hunch - I'd be curious to hear from people who actually lived through those changes with their own gear.  
jollytinker
213 posts
 
oh weird - for some reason my browser didn’t show me the last bunch of posts before posting the above comment. apologies if I’m already redundant
rwwear
2,873 posts
 
My SP-10MK-III has a powerful motor and a heavy platter.
gilles130
128 posts
 
My friend had a golfmund reference. The power supply had problems so he bought a teres rim drive .He was totally astonished when he discovered that the sound was better with the teres.
lewm
13,184 posts
 
Multiple motors. What would interest me to try, if I was still interested in belt drive for my own use, would be two motors positioned at opposite sides of the platter, 180 degrees apart, so as to equalize the forces involved in rotating the platter through a belt connection. Any more than two motors only increases issues related to noise and synchronizing the motors, without enhancing any of the potential benefits associated with more than one motor. It’s a can of worms that I would rather not open. I believe the Kuzma Reference turntable uses two motors in this manner.
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