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
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 ?
tomwh
150 posts
 
I have not played with or heard any myself.  Guessing they get low noise with small motors and more HP with multiple.  Trying to wrap my head around getting multiple motors to dance together.

Enjoy the ride
Tom
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
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