>>I gather you've moved away from belt drive<<
This made me chuckle. Circa 1976 I owned at once a Linn Sondek, Luxman PD444 and a Transcriptor Glass Skeleton. I've been using the Luxman PD441 and 444 turntables for 36 years. In the meantime, Linn, Pink Triangle, VPI, Mission and several other belt drive turntables have come and gone. Along the way I found the Luxman direct drives could be significantly improved by replacing the stock spring/elastromer feet with brass cones on Aurios media bearings. At the time, the Luxman PD444 was the best sounding direct drive turntable of its era, better still than the Technics SP10 and SP25, and it has remained the table to beat in my systems. I have two PD444s with the footing upgrades. So me using direct drive is not a recent thing nor a "move away from belt drive." I used both drive technologies together in my systems over the years, but about ten years ago sold my last belt-drive turntable. I haven't heard anything belt-driven to persuade me to return, save possibly the top version of the VPI Classic.
If Luxman hadn't made the PD44X turntables, I'd probably have been using belt drive all these years. The design choices made for these tables were exceptional and in some respects resemble choice Harry Weisfeld arrived at for his Classic series about 35 years after the Luxmans were engineered. The Luxman PD444 weighs about 65 lbs because its plinth sandwiches a chipboard (better than MDF for resonance control) core between a heavy iron plate and an aluminum top sheet. The drive motor, custom built by Tokyo Electric, includes magnetic repulsion for a "load-free spindle" (really, load reduced bearing), phase-lock loop and a perimeter-mass platter to smooth out any residual "hunting." At a time when an armless Linn Sondek cost $350 in the US, the Luxman PD444 was $895.
The closest equivalent today is the Brinkmann Oasis, and if I were to replace my Luxmans today, that's what I'd buy.
Now, each drive technology sounds different. I did briefly own a Thorens TD124 in 1975. Less was investigated back then about plinthing idler drive turntables in domestic hifi, and idlers had fast lost respect for their problems. But remembering the energetic drive of that Thorens, a couple of years ago I bought a nearly NOS Garrard 401, had a birch-stack plinth made for it and topped it with a Thomas Schick tonearm to use with Ortofon SPU cartridges. That has proved a sufficiently entertaining alternative to the Luxmans that I am pretty sure I'll upgrade it with a slate, slate/wood or solid wood (blocks laminated) plinth. The Luxmans have the more precise, objective sound. The Garrard/Schick/SPU produces a big, robust, bursty sound less extractive of detail than the Luxman, but more imbued with sheer emotion.
I used the direct drive Luxman for 25 years before moving my systems to SET amps about ten years ago, and then to Zu + SET in 2005. So the "shift" between drive systems had different origins. Modern SET + Zu overcame a multi-decades dissatisfaction with hifi for me. The ability to at once be relieved of the incoherence, phase anomalies and dynamic choking of crossover-based speakers and enjoy the absence of crossover grunge in push-pull tube amps, get the tonal completeness and integrity of SET and wideband drivers, with modern sonic accuracy ended the futility intrinsic to high end audio as a pursuit, for me. It was a far bigger development than choosing turntable drive systems. Since placing Zu + Audion SET in my systems, a wider range of music has been made listenable and enjoyable. My patience for truly advancing upgrades is Zen-like. And I am entirely opportunity-focused about improvements rather than chasing irritations around the edges because the central topological problems in speakers and amps weren't solvable.
It's not that I am upgrading via DACs as much as I am going to expand by adding another source, and if I can get an upgrade to optical, terrific. We're clearly, in the waning years of Redbook CD, getting more options for good sound from that format than in all the years of the format's existence up to, say, 2009. So this is worth paying attention to.
When you're evaluating turntables/tonearms/cartridges, beware the many contemporary devices that succeed in making vinyl sound more like CD. Prioritize simplicity and quality of execution. And remember, you have to live with the device day-to-day, which can be different from 2 hours in a store.
Phil
