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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
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harold-not-the-barrel
895 posts
 
Lew, surely you have experienced more different kinds of turntables than I ever have. Great.
I have only a couple of each kind but they are not mediocre decks but not the ultimate models of a particular kind either. But I know exactly what a high quality belt drive/ rim drive/ direct drive is capable of. I have learnt my lesson.

hiho, exactly you are right: it´s all reality. Mine is a Salvation implementation and Vic the Designer knows exactly what a quality (direct) rim drive is all about. It´s all Vic´s idea, and with the help of him I just made my own to fit my platter. All credit is his.
Hearing, however, is another thing, maybe we hear slightly differently maybe not. Whatever the case, I like my hearing illusions, you obviously yours. Nothing new under the sun :)  
hiho
451 posts
 
Lewm: "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."

I would simply placed another pulley next to the platter on the opposite side of the motor: one motor, one platter, and two pulleys. I think that would do the trick without the extra motor noise. VPI  did something similar in their early TNT model but with THREE pulleys!
ct0517's avatar
ct0517
2,041 posts
 
^^^^^
hiho - pulleys also make noise.

I owned one of these TNT turntables. A very nice table I used it with and without the extra pulleys. It was outperformed by my custom Technics Sp10 and also the Jean Nantais 100 lb Lenco. Then I modified the TNT, including the use of thread. At this point it outperformed the Technics and the Jean Nantais lenco and produced music as described in my previous post - words courtesy of SG. 8^0
analogluvr
859 posts
 
Chris I tried looking up your thread "goldilocks and the three turntables " but couldn't find it.  Could you provide a link?  
Also, off topic I apologize, but how do you contact a member directly in this system?
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