Direct Drive vs. Idler Drive vs. Belt drive

At 53K before tonearm I would hope the Saskia has what your previous DD’s did not. I would love to hear one to compare with my much less expensive set-ups.

the Rockport Sirius III direct drive was way more expensive than the Saskia even back when i owned it. now a nice one would run you over $100k. but i think cost is not a good way to view things, especially turntables. we find real gems sometimes at modest investments. 

I have maybe 18K in my hot-rodded 301. 4K for a nearly NOS drive unit. Close to 2K for a solid brass platter, another 1K for a solid brass spindle/main bearing, close to 2K for a PSU to decrease motor noise, 3K for a custom plinth that weighs 50 lbs or so in layered cherry with cocobolo outer veneer, another 2K for things like an AS idler wheel and stillpointes, and 4K for my Reed 3P arm.

congrats on your Garrard.

i owned a Steve Dobbins Garrard 301 with a Loricraft UPS power supply and a Reed arm back in 2009-2011. i loved that turntable. yours sounds very special. no reason it might not be head to head with my Saskia.

thank you for the kind words about my Saskia, i do consider it a very special piece and enjoy it's way of making the music come alive every day. no doubt idlers do some certain things for the music that seems essential to me.

I built my modified Lenco based on Win Tinnon's recommendations.  Slate plinth, PTP top plate, platter painted and damped to reduce resonance, huge aftermarket bearing with under-platter clamp, from Jeremy in the UK, Phoenix Engineering Motor Controller.  It performs up there with anything else I own.  The total investment there is under $2K, partly I guess because I subcontracted the making of the slate plinth. Peter Reinders (source for the PTP) supplied a pdf file to program the waterjet; the actual cutting was done by a company in York, PA.  Slate came from the same quarry in PA used by OMA.  I was fortunate to source an NOS Lenco as the basis for that project, for only $500.

Love the sound of your 301 fsonic, would love to really hear it.
My much more modest 401 in 45lb birch and curly maple plinth with micro seiki ma505ls arm has outperformed anything else I have ever owned to my ears.
But I think I just love the idler sound, the dynamic presentation and life that no dd or belt has yet shown me.
Of course I have not ventured into the rarified air of 5 figure plus tables so I don’t know what I don’t know.
Unless I win the lottery I don’t see my 401 going anywhere soon.

You gotta love this hobby. 
I've been in it since the age of 15 so 45 years. 
The other day I was listening to a well recorded live album of an artist I have seen many times, and on certain (but not all) cuts it was startling how real it sounded. I have never had that sensation with my digital rig (Aurender and Abbingdon Music Research DP777 with Wireworld's most expensive USB (Platinum Starlight Something Ridiculous)). 
My present thought with vinyl is that you have higher highs and lower lows than with digital, but when you get things right and have a damned good cartridge, magic can happen. 
My 301 has a VdH Crimson Strad on it. FWIW, I think the cartridge I have-dialed in by Brian Walsh-is a critical part of reaching this level of vinyl playback. 
And with all that said, it does not happen every day. I could probably play back that same record tonight and the magic won't happen. The zombie-dust stuff is at play whether it be ascribed to hearing differences day to day, atmospheric things, electrical, ambient noise, etc. 

I think HP of all people nailed it when he noted that digital reproduction effects a high pass filter albeit at a very low frequency which seems to rob the music of its natural ambiance. The bass drops off a cliff, metaphorically speaking. You don’t hear it as lack of bass per se. HP described it as a reduction in downward dynamic range. I hear it with red book CD and with SACD. I don’t know if it is still the case for current Hi-Rez streaming  types of reproduction. But a friend of mine who is into that sort of thing, and who also has high end vinyl equipment, does still hear a difference in favor of vinyl.