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
If the plinth is very massive, then I would think Rollerblocks would be good.  With a torque-y motor like the one in the Mk2, the force spinning the platter in the clockwise direction also creates a counter-force that "wants" to rotate the plinth in the opposite direction (Newton's 3rd Law of Motion).  If you mount a light structure on Rollerblocks, there might be a slight tendency that this counter-force will be sufficient to actually overcome the inertia of the plinth and twist it in the counter-clockwise direction, which is not ideal for playing LPs and also wastes some torque that you want to be applied to the platter.

jolly, one of my audio buddies had a VPI table (possibly a Scout, I'm not certain) and he added the Teres rim drive motor.  He was experienced with both components and music and found it to be a significant improvement.

enginedr, for the sound from the component itself, in this case the SP-10 Mk 2, perhaps something like the "drain system" described by Albert Porter for his Technics might be beneficial?
The plinth I had built is on the massive side to accommodate a 12 " arm.  And for loss of torque on a SP10 table I don't think that's a problem . In my case the roller blocks work . As for the Albert Porter sink I think he is coupling the motor thrust plate to the plinth. My next tweak is making a VTA on the fly adjuster for my Ortofon AS212 tone arm    
Porter mod: no, not attached to the plinth per say.  Instead the thrust plate is connected to a cast iron plate to sink vibrations.  That is enclosed at the bottom of the plinth.

Raul....You seem to be getting bad comments on these forums.  I, certainly appreciate your efforts and do hope they continue.  You seem to always be telling the truth whereas many on these pages just pontificate will guesses rather than experience.