Direct Drive vs. Idler Drive vs. Belt drive

Dear @mikelavigne : """  these things are always degrees of success, trade-offs and compromises. again, anything mechanical can only approach perfection. ..."""

As you I think you own 3 different drive TTs where each one is  one of the best on its kind out there and due to the top quality level you are experienced with more than real compromises or trade-offs what exist is " only " just top quality performance but with different  " color " that as you said all are approaching perfection at levels you don't experienced before.

I'm sure that each of your TTs designers are really satisfied with the way the items performs.

R.

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.

@lewm  In a nutshell, vinyl has more bandwidth than Redbook. On the bottom end its only limited by the mechanical resonance of the playback. On the top end it can go out well past 50KHz, although my cutter is bandwidth-limited at about 42KHz.

Dear  @alexberger :  ""  It is weird that people on this forum are not familiar with EMT 950 and 948 DD turntables. .."""

not really, many of us are familiar with. Here exist several threads on the EMT, I participated on at least two of them. This is one of those several threads and before and after it exist more ( this is only an example. ):

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/emt-turntables-as-good-as-other-great-vintage-tt

the things are that you are almost new in Agon. An audio friend of mine works in a radio/tv big network  and he invited to a listenning session down there and ovbiously a " tour " around the company. The listening session was using one of the 10+ 950 TTs they used to and during the " trip " to the company installations they had only one SP-10MK2.

Btw, yes your friend is rigth, the SP10-2 sounds sterile. I owned 3 samples that I sold when my Denons outperformed with some easy to it. The Denon servo design makes the differences because the 10-2 specs are higher than the ones on Denon units but specs never says all. The MK3 is different but still with some trouble in the servo design.

Now and speaking of EMT, Technics and Denon the EMT and SP10 as the Denon 308 and DP100M were designed expressily for radio stations not for a home audio systems.
Latter on came the Technics MK3 and DP100 for home systems. 

R.

Raul you rascal. You got banned from a forum? Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. 

In my own experience distinguishing between excellent turntables using the same cartridge is difficult and likely more dependent on my mood than any specific difference in performance. I am more inclined to look at more practical issues such as stability (can I jump up and down without the record skipping). How hard can I bang on the table before hearing it.
Ease of use. I don't care what it looks like as long as it is well constructed. I discriminate among the tables by drive type given the inherent weakness indigenous to each type.  

Lewm, It is not really a filter effect although there is an anti aliasing filter up there but the high end frequency of CDs is limited by the sampling rate. If you over sample you can push the filter up higher reducing it's effects in the audio band but you do not push the frequency response up higher. One of the nicest albums ever recorded The Trinity Session was recorded in 44.1/16 so there is more at work here.
There is absolutely no problem with the bass on CDs. They do just fine and are generally cleaner than vinyl because of lack of mechanical considerations. Remember, for the most part I prefer vinyl to CDs. 

Ralph, isn't it incredible that you can get a rock to vibrate that fast!

Mike, you really need to get a Reed 5T and tell us how you like it. If I had $20K disposable now I would go for it. 

In my own experience distinguishing between excellent turntables using the same cartridge is difficult and likely more dependent on my mood than any specific difference in performance.

true