Dear Mickeyf, With reference to your post up the page wherein you assert that the "motor is solidly coupled to the platter" in a direct-drive design and infer that this is a problem, I urge you to remove the platter from a high quality direct drive turntable and really think about what is going on. The platter is riding on the spindle suspended on a bearing, just exactly as it does in a belt-drive turntable. The stator or magnet part of the motor is actually part of the inert platter itself or is firmly mated to it. The rotor or coils surround the base of the spindle but make no contact with it at all. In sum, the drive system has no motion independent of that of the platter, and there is no physical contact between the two drive elements. Please tell me how this is worse than the design of a belt-drive turntable, where in addition to the platter riding on spindle/bearing, we have a belt that in theory can transmit vibrations of a much higher rpm motor to the rim of the platter. (Another advantage of dd is the slower-rotating motor, which can therefore also be quieter than that of a belt-drive.) I don't say that this proves dd is better than bd, but I do say that somewhere along the way a myth has been created re there being a problem with the proximity of the motor to the spindle. I think the myth took root back in the late 80s, when manufacturers started to sell us on belt-drive over dd.
