Oregon, a small correction. We are no longer producing any belt drive turntables. For more than a year now our top of the line table has been direct drive.
With all of the noise about rim vs belt, direct I think that the most important point about the Verus motor is being lost. The reason we are adopting rim and direct drive is that we now have a motor that has dramatically less cogging than anything we have seen before. This allows us to couple the motor more intimately with the platter without the detrimental effects of cogging.
Isolation between the motor and platter (from a belt, idler or whatever) is a very good way to reduce the negative effects of cogging. But as this group knows so well it also causes loss of pace and smearing. An idler setup suffers from cogging effects but to my ears it's a better compromise than the smearing you get from the greatly increased isolation resulting from a belt. But it is a still a compromise.
Because the Verus motor is essentially coggless, we are able to couple the motor as intimately as possible to the platter without introducing degradations from cogging. This is why we created a drop in replacement for the Garrard motor. With the major reduction in cogging and more intimate coupling to the platter the improvement is not subtle. It was rim drive both before and after so there is more to the story than just the drive topology.
I have contemplated creating a drop in replacement for the Lenco. Any interest?
