Direct drive/rim drive/idler drive vs. belt drive?

Axel, You mean the "momentary" switch like the one I tried to use can also be used with a relay? That's an interesting point. There's no place to hide the relay in a solid slate plinth, but perhaps a small one mounted underneath would be unobtrusive enough to get by.

Ralph, those guitar switches are pretty big, are they not? Has to fit a 5/8'-diameter hole, but I will look at your referenced site.

Dave, I think I looked at the Allied catalog at about 2 AM last night. In my groggy state, I may have missed something. I did find a near-to-correct size switch made by APEM, sold by Digikey. I think I can fudge it with some washers.

Sorry, this is so-o-o-o off-topic. But it is my very preliminary observation that a massive plinth (layered wood or slate) makes good direct-drive and idler-drive turntables sound not only better but more alike than different from each other. I am pursuing this comparison further. It keeps me off the street, most of the time.

Lew, 5/8" is a pretty big hole. The stomp switches are usually set up for 1/2".

We found that the plinth had a lot of effect too- again, it is a resonant signature, and one unique to each 'table. The more you can reduce this issue (along with tighter coupling between the platter bearing and the tonearm) the less signature the individual machine will display: bass will have more impact, overall greater dynamic impact (more lively, without added brightness), blacker backgrounds... again a lot of the same effects that deadening the platter has.

Ralph, I agree completely with what you say re the effect of plinth-ing. I was surprised that the slate plinth had such a profound effect on the "sound" of my Denon DP80. I would have thought that a direct-drive system would be rather a closed one in which colorations introduced by the drive were directly "injected" (for want of a better term) into the audio signal via the coupling of motor to spindle. Thus, except for better controlling the inertia of the motor itself, I thought that the positive effect of the slate would be limited. I was quite wrong.
"bass will have more impact, overall greater dynamic impact (more lively, without added brightness), blacker backgrounds..." That's what I hear too. Win's turntable (the Saskia) must be quite awesome.

Lewm

The easiest solution I can see to your problem is to have the switch control a relay. If you have lowish DC voltages available (preferably either 5V or 12V) this is easy to do.

You'll need some logic to convert the momentary action to a latching action but it's not hard to do. Since I have B+ delay on all my valve gear I use mains switching by relay as a matter of course anyway and I like the safety aspects.

Mark Kelly

Thanks for the help, Mark. I actually found a plain old push-push switch that will likely do the job, but the relay is my next option. This is just to switch a Lenco motor on and off, so sophistication is not a priority.