Direct Drive vs. Idler Drive vs. Belt drive

I found Herb Reichert's piece in the latest edition of S'Phile uhhh....interesting. He reviewed the J.Sikora Initial which is belt drive and in an apparent effort to heap his usual unfettered Primaluna type hyperbolic and unrealistic praise upon it, he took a jab at his own Thorens TD124 calling it (I am not home to quote verbatim) a bucket of nuts and bolts by comparison. All this using a Jelco arm while the photo S'Phile published with his review shows a Kuzma, go figure. I wish I had his phone number so I could tell him that I will take it-his TD124- off his hands since he finds it to be junk. 
I bring it up here because I happen to believe that all three can be very good. It all depends upon implementation. Herb is a gifted writer but unlike Art Dudley who many have lumped him with, he has very mediocre gear and an apparent low bar used as a reference. 
For Herb Reichert to call the Thorens TD124 a bucket of bolts is like some proud new Tesla owner declaring an original mint Shelby Mustang to be outdated trash. Fine. That does not make it so and 98% of automotive cognoscenti would take the Shelby seven days a week and Sunday too. 
Yes, I have a TD124. Highly modified. And a highly modded Garrard 301. I suspect Herb's TD124 has not be properly cleaned, serviced, or modded and that he has an even worse arm than a Jelco (not bad mind you, but Jelco is not close to the top either) mounted to it. Herb, Herb, Herb, stop smoking so much herb Herb. 

@thuchan , the need for an all air design became obvious when I attended a manufacturer’s rollout for the big new Technics. They had a naked motor available for admiration, and so I picked it up, put it next to my ear, and I could hear the sleeve bearings when I twisted the spindle. Not loud, obviously, but the noise was there if you listened carefully. My New Way amorphous carbon thrust bushing is dead silent!

terry9,

Did you install that air bearing on the main platter bearing?  Is the motor that drives your set up similarly equipped with an air bearing?  

@larryi , I installed that New Way thrust bushing on a platter board which is isolated from the motor. Technology is belt drive - as others have noted, anyone can build a belt drive in his workshop. 

Alas, I could not find a low power, ultra-low-noise motor with air bearings, and I have not got around to replacing the sleeve bearings with air. It’s pretty fiddly!

But those sleeves are a problem. This is demonstrable by removing the belt and manually bringing the platter to speed. The latter sounds more refined, less high frequency hash. When the belt is restored, hash returns. When the motor is turned on, nothing changes. Hence it is the motor’s sleeve bearings to blame, not cogging or other electro-mechanical effects.

This is a little surprising, given the platter's mass, about 45 kg.