Is Direct Drive Really Better?

Mr. Chris Brady, you are obviously free to develop and produce any type of table you wish (I am all for research and development), and you may not know the answer to this question, but do you know how the owners of your current belt drive tables feel about the development of a direct drive table as your top-o-the-line model (assuming that means it’ll be the BEST table you'll make)? I only ask because I know from experience on this and other boards that many of the Teres owners are some of the most ardent supporters regarding the superiority of belt drives, in general, and of Teres tables as a leading example of same, in particular.

"For that question to be meaningful one would also have to know what the threshold of perception is for this phenomena. Measuring something is often easy. Correlating that measurement to perceived differences is often fraught with difficulty."

True, and not true. It is still a valid question, because I hear many people refer to stylus drag, but nobody offering proof that is it
a) Occuring measurably
b) Occuring at a level that we might expect the ear to be able to resolve.

Digital jitter has been accurately measured, and then somewhat correlated with audible effects. It's not too unreasonable to expect turntable manufacturers to do the same ?

I would add, at what point does the stylus drag and micro speed variations in a high end turntable fall below the speed stability of

a) The cutting lathe
b) The master tape recorder
c) The 2" multi-track tape source

so that the turntable is now more accurate than the LP it is playing ?

I must admit Chris's post comparing analog speed variation to timing jitter in digital is quite thought provoking ... I'd never thought of them in the same way, but in retrospect it's obvious that they cause similar distortions to the waveform.

Jejune, Not even close to the 1200. The Teres DD table will be flagship offering. It's both difficult and expensive to do DD right.

I thought the big belt drive Teres tables were flagships. If this DD thing is even more expensive then mebbe the 4yanx was right but sooner than he thought.