Direct Drive vs. Idler Drive vs. Belt drive

By today's standard it is not so hot but back then not bad at all. An SME arm cost twice as much as the whole turntable! If you put anti skating on it along with a real horizontal bearing it would be quite competitive.
There are aspects of the XA tonearm's design that are very important. It is a neutral balance design. It's vertical bearing is at record level. It has a very stiff but light head shell (it just happens to look cheap) These aspects of design are critical for the best performance. The Kuzma 4 point arms are designed this way as are the SME and better Origin Live arms. The crazy expensive SAT tonearm's vertical bearing is way up in the air and it is a static balance arm! I don't know about you but I would never consider one even if I had that kind of money. If you don't believe in warp wow raise the back of your arm all the way up, put on a test record with a steady 1000 Hz tone and stick a nickle under the edge of the record. The tone will change very noticeably as the stylus passes the nickle. Now drop your arm so that the vertical bearing is at the level of the record. Very little tone change. IMHO the SAT arm is an extremely well made paper weight. 

Lewm,
you are right. 1 motor + passive flywheel on opposite side to nullify any side forces on the bearing. As I do with my original Micro Seiki flywheel. In case of the two motors you need to have an intelligent adjustment incorporated in the motor steering, as VPI or Sterling do.
Unfortunately VPI is not producing their SDS steering anymore, but they developed the ADS.

p.s. I am wondering why TechDas did not incorporate such a solution, the Apolyt uses an inbuilt passive flywheel

best
E.

Passive Flywheel = more mechanical noise. It is the same reason manufacturers interested in the highest fidelity shied away from changers and idler wheel designs. 

Gawd- the original AR tt was awful. The motor was underpowered; the speed would oscillate back and forth just by setting the arm on the LP. The foam platter pad was a joke but the suspension and drive really needed it to be light. While the bearing location in the arm was an innovation, it was vastly overshadowed by the simple fact that the arm bearings had slop, making it chatter when anything complex showed up in the musical program. The headshell was plastic and over time wore out (from being installed and removed from the arm tube) or warped as it perished. It was a machine that was cleverly built to a price point, and didn't challenge machines like the Empire 208 that were around at the same time.  


Given how innovative AR was at the time, its a bit surprising that they chose to under-serve their concepts as presented in this machine. If they had been a bit more aggressive and upscaled it a bit, they would have built a classic.  

Loosecannon,
do not understand what your are saying, why more mechanical noise by using a passive flywheel? Can you explain?
idler wheel is a great technology but not easy to build and implement. It is much easier to build a „very simple design like the Acoustic Research“ your are promoting. Thorens had similar suspensions as the AR but much better arms.
Have you heard an EMT idler wheel (e.g. 279) or the latest Garrard models - all excellent idler wheels!
best

E.