The SOUND is not belt drive or direct drive, the SOUND is mostly the cartridge, but the belt drive are inconvenient, slow, not stable in terms of speed, cheaply made toys (not all of them for sure, but those mentioned by the OP are definitely not the best belt drive turntables at all and very expensive for a belt drive). I’ve checked the price for a Dr.Feickert belt drive for example and it’s over $7000 (at least it’s easy to swap the arms on this one and it's a good looking table).
Many people never heard of Technics, never tried it, all their life they thought it was made for DJs only (the biggest mistake), i assume they never seen an SP10mkII , SP20 or top of the line SP10 mkIII, and speaking of very expensive belt drive (that might be good too, but at much higher price) even brand new reference class SP-10R is still cheaper being the best new DD available today.
Many people never heard of Technics, never tried it, all their life they thought it was made for DJs only (the biggest mistake), i assume they never seen an SP10mkII , SP20 or top of the line SP10 mkIII, and speaking of very expensive belt drive (that might be good too, but at much higher price) even brand new reference class SP-10R is still cheaper being the best new DD available today.