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
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,475 posts
 
In the real world...everything matters.  You can't put the same cartridge on a different turntable and equate the differences to the drive systems.  Even things like what the table is sitting on, the type of material the base  of the turntable is made of, etc...makes an enormous difference.  Discounting all the different resonances, etc, what I hear that I can attribute to drives is that short term pitch accuracy is affected by the elasticity of the belt itself in a belt turntable, and the blurring of the sonic picture in direct drive due to resonances, pitch adjustment in the feedback loupe, etc.  I am using a rim drive which I find is as good as any, and better than most.  Certainly there are various levels of performance in everything.
tomwh
150 posts
 
Has2be

Well we are on the same page in music reproduction likes.  For me if the tone is not correct or close why bother.  The late Grizmo was the same way.  Your comments about CDs are also on the mark.  When things made of wood sound electronic that should raise a red flag.

Have been building lead loaded aluminum platters 30 to 40 pounds.  The difference between a 15 pound platter is big.  Drive, pitch, and decay.  I was not expecting decay but stability and or mass helped.

I am building string/belt/tape drives because it is the simplest.  Might try rim set up to see how it does.  The other thing which a group over on DIY forum have been building are motor controllers which can do 2 and 3 phase motors.  Got some really big motors in very big pods which are quite good.  Maybe the drive of the others with the great tone to boot.  If I put on Bob Segar silver bullet live I think I am in Detroit.

If I was guessing I would say most people would be better off playing with phono stages, huge differences.  Thanks for your insight.  It is nice to hear from someone who not only played with this high end stuff but also could explain in musical terms what he heard.  

Enjoy the ride
Tom


harold-not-the-barrel
895 posts
 
Hello Tom, could you tell more about the string/tape drive motors you have experienced ?
tomwh
150 posts
 
Hi Harold

It is a work in progress just got a Brush less DC which I will run on 3 phase ac.  This was thought up by Bill at Phoenix engineering.  He has been great to the DIY group.

The biggest thing in belt drives so far for me has been big heavy platters.  It also follows the laws of physics.  The other is bigger torque motors.  The trade off is normally the larger you get the more noise.  The increase in overall dyanmics with heavy platters has been worth the noise increase.

The small maxon DC motors where really not designed to be pushing 38lb platters around.  The biggest issue is finding the ac motors of any quality anymore.  Hurst gets the job done but high quality???  So if the Bldc motors work out they look like great quality for the money.

So to bring this back to the original topic if I was going belt drive and had to buy it, I would get biggest platter I could in that price range.  Assuming the manufacturer knew what he was doing and the bearing and motor would be OK for the platter.

If we are talking small differences there are tons of variables which have been mentioned.

Enjoy the ride
Tom
enginedr1960
173 posts
 
There is another trend in belt drive multiple motors like the Audio Note and Feickert tables . Do you have any feedback on theses designs ?
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