Direct Drive vs. Idler Drive vs. Belt drive

@lewm

If you’re obsessed with suspensions, Minus K or Herzan or possibly Vibraplane are ways to go. And each of those can be used with any drive system.

the Herzan active type systems can only be used when the gear has zero sensed self noise. any self noise will set up a feedback loop and burn out the device, or at least compromise the benefit. which is why it can’t be used on many turntables.

for instance it works perfectly with my dd Wave Kinetics NVS as it zero self noise. but my Saskia model two idler has considerable self noise so it’s not a candidate. most belt drives and idlers are not candidates. i could use a passive air device such as a Stacore with the Saskia and may try it.

For idle drive you need a very accurate mechanical production and professional design.
For DD you need high tech engine and electronic control system.
For belt drive you can get a cheap toy car engine, build it in your garage and sell it for thousands $$$.

This is not just me but but all the audio big wigs in Miami circa 1980. The drive behind these tables was that they were cheaper, easier to assemble, much lighter (less expensive to ship) and could be pumped out in large numbers which they were. Since the Japs are capable of turning out an extremely polished device and the marketing hype was good they sold in droves until the digitally mandated vinyl crash. There are some newer DD tables I find intriguing and would like to hear but given my own experience I would never buy one sight unheard.
One other problem is that I have never seen a DD table properly suspended. A drive be it belt, DD or Idler is entirely dependent on it's plinth for isolation. Cartridges being the very sensitive devices they are will pick up any vibration transferred from the environment to the drive. This is best and most reliably done (IMHO) by having a very inert sub chassis suspended by a system with a resonant frequency around 3 Hz.

Since that time Technics did quite a lot on their top-end machines to deal with those issues. The latest round seems even better- The SL1200G is now one of the most speed-stable machines made. A Sutherland Time-Line sorts that out quickly enough.

There are a good number of belt drive machines that lack in the way of suspension, but IME, I've found that if you really want a turntable to sound right, its got to perch on a proper isolation platform and in turn on a proper stand, whether suspended or not. I found my SOTA Cosmos to be dramatically affected by this practice; when I went to our Atma-Sphere 208 it was too and I found the lack of suspension on it to be of no consequence whatsoever, perhaps because our goal was to make the machine otherwise quite dead. FWIW, the Technics SL-1200G uses 6 different means of killing vibration (including a very dead plinth) so despite no suspension it seems to work just fine if on a proper platform and stand.


Our model 208 is as speed stable and neutral as any belt drive, but IMO the Technics is better. That's why we came up with an armboard for it so a tonearm that does it justice can be installed.

Here is a very interesting site about DD turntable:
http://www.edsstuff.org/dd_museum.pdf

I have a Garrard 301 grease in Woodsong plinth, EMT 948, and Kuzma Reference (belt/suspended). I like to think I love all my children equally. But if I had to sacrifice one it would be the Kuzma.