Direct Drive vs. Idler Drive vs. Belt drive

@thuchan

thank you for that hint. i did see a picture of the bearing here;

https://audiocirc.com/2016/10/21/air-bearing/

looks very purposeful. it’s similar to what i had on my Rockport Sirius III. not sure about the TechDAS.

currently my CS Port LFT1 has an air bearing and the whole platter sits on an air film. it is a low flow low pressure design. i like it a lot.

Mikelavigne,

these are all airfloating designs but not using a real airbearing.
For a real airbearing you need a powerful compressor, it is 1m x 1m like the DUERR Technik. You need to put it into a separate room.

but these designs are very nice too!

best
E.

I personally think magnet floating designs like the Clearaudio and SOTA bearing are a more elegant solution for a thrust plate. As for which one is stiffer I have no idea. As Atmasphere implies the connection between the bearing and the tonearm base have to be absolutely rigid. With either the air "float" or magnet float designs there is an element of squish. So we have a trade off between bearing noise and wear vs squish and whatever that does to the reproduction of music. I would certainly think a compressor would wear out long before any top quality bearing and I have heard a number of top quality tables with standard bearings make essentially no noise that I could ascertain under normal use so to my way of thinking air bearings of any type are filigree. Opposing magnets on the other hand if stiff enough than why not?
I do find it interesting that this discussion has boiled down to derivations in belt drive designs.  

Mijostyn,
i guess you never heard an air bearing table, of which only two brands exist today. You do not have any noise from the compressor as it stays in a different room. Do you know about the advantage of air bearings towards other bearings? Of course it depends how far you are going with your system, most people do not like big compressors (maybe they never worked with a DUERR Technik).
Accepting a good design is ok as far as you do not like to reach „the moon“ 😀

Best
E.

This discussion hasn't "boiled down" to anything at all.  The subject at hand is always a function of who feels like posting at any given time of day or night.  My personal predilections are against excess complexity per se.  I don't want a compressor in my room OR in the next room OR in my system anywhere, not because an air bearing is not excellent but because I don't  want the complexity, the hoses, the moisture problems, the filters, etc.  And probably also because the turntables that employ air bearings are beyond my upper limits in what I am willing to spend.  There IS a point where cost is laughably high.