Direct Drive turntables

lots of sound logic (pun intended) in these posts. the last 2, from Teres and Radical Steve, ring true with me.

i'm a direct drive 'preferrer'....and also enjoy what a good idler can do for musical enjoyment with it's added 'spice'. i've heard many belt-driven tt's that play music wonderfully (but could be improved with well executed dd). so really it all can be good according to execution.

Teres' point about ranking sonic performance (belt -> rim/idler -> dd) and difficulty of execution as the motor gets closer to the 'music' sounds right, as does Radicalsteve's point about 'air bearings' and 'heroic' over-the-top solutions to minimizing the noise and resonance that also echo my personal experience.

i have the Dobbins Garrard 301 as well as the Dobbins Technics SP-10 Mk3. compared to belt drives in my experience there is a certain continuousness and sure-footedness on peaks that even very good belt drives cannot match. the high performance belt drives are good in these areas, but just not as good. these characterisitics live in the timing of the music and are not to be denied. when a piano or stringed instrument is properly recorded idlers and dd have valuable advantages.

then there is noise and resonance control. my direct drive Rockport has the eddy current true cogless motor with an air bearing. it has the 55 pound platter. then there is the active air suspension, the linear tracking air bearing arm, and the vaccuum hold down. you take the direct drive advantages executed to the extreme, and eliminate the noise. now you are at the edge of what is possible.

maybe belt-drives that have some of these other advantages have their own form of magic, but if i had to choose my priorities as one moves up the food chain......direct drive or idler (maybe rim) would come first before belts with air bearings. the timing of music seems most critical to the enjoyment level (my personal perspective--YMMV).

Agree with Mike Lavigne and Teres, I've owned a lot of tables since my Thorens TD124 back in 1965 and my return to rim drive and discovery of "excellence" in direct drive has moved me completely away from belts.

Many belt drives like the air bearing Walker Proscenium Black Diamond with air bearing linear track arm can certainly provide state of the art performance. I lived with mine for about a decade, evolving from Basis Debut Gold MK5 with Air Tangent 10B and before that the Versa Dynamics. Each one provided tremendous performance, I have fond memories of having owned these.

When I ventured into my Lenco project in 2004, although the inexpensive arm and moving magnet cartridge were no match for my Walker Proscenium, there was absolute magic in the drive, timing and pace of music from the Lenco, so much so that we laughed out loud in surprise almost every time we played it.

Of course the Walker beat the Lenco in so many other ways I eventually sold it and moved on.

After that, each time I heard a Garrard 301 or Lenco I knew something was missing and eventually decided to give the Technics SP10 MK2 a run. What followed was a procession of experiments that led me to the Technics MK3 which I believe is one of the most speed accurate turntables ever made and all that remained was deal with noise, isolation and power supply.

Odd that in the end I wound up spending more money on the Technics than I sold my Walker for, but I'm completely happy.

Well I have to put in my 2 cents for my DD table. A Kenwood KD-600, with an SME III tonearm and a VDH MM1 cartridge. Still going strong after some 20 years. I did replace the cartridge (had an Adcom MM) but nothing else. Sounds great with my older and newer LP's.

Radicalsteve, if you include oil-pressure bearing in the same group as air-bearing I would agree with your conclusion (while I would direct slam, air and physical weight to other circumstances than the mere drive principle.

Dear Mikelavigne: I don't argue of what you heard through your first hand TT drive experiences but what does not make sense to me is that you made statements/conclusions ( same as Albert. ) of the superior DD performance when ( even between your DD experiences ) all those different TT drive designs are not only different because of its drive designs but because are different overall " input to output "!!!!, in these circumstances/enviroment what are you comparing with?, IMHO not its drive system design but the TT as a whole and with each one tonearm mounted ( that were different too. ).

Years ago when I was " new " in this forum I posted several times of the " superior " DD TT technology over the BD one, several people laughed ( including people that today " die for DD ". ) for say the least.
I was an advocate to DD systems ( and still I'm. ) but over the time I learn on the whole subject and today I know that that single factor ( drive design. ) can't tell us the true about TT differences/performance.

I posted here/in this thread:

+++++ " Now, a TT audio item is not a set of " single/aisle " advantages/disadvantages but a whole finished audio item with intrinsic trade-offs ( there is no perfect TT. ).

Where reside ( mainly ) those trade-offs? ( certainly not on the TT drive design. ) and this is a hard question with many answers, example: type of bearing, TT plinth, kind of motor choice, platter build material, arm board build material, TT " system " vibration/isolation ( external/internal ) mechanism, whole TT quality/build execution,.

These and many other factors are the ones that makes the " differences " and IMHO you can get/have the quality performance you are looking for with either TT drive mechanism. " +++++

Mike IMHO you can't prove ( any one can't. ) that DD systems makes " per se " the difference!

+++++ " The analog imperfections like an audio chain makes extremely complex to have a " simple " answer to your question: the whole subject is very complex and till today I don't read/know ( anywhere ) a precise answers that can be corroborated in a scientist/theoretical/mathematics model. " +++++

Even Dertonarm agree that the drive principle can't tell the whole " history " and I say even because I know the Dertonarm " bias " about and Teres confirm:

+++++ " This is how I believe that the drive topologies stack up. But it actually says little about how turntables using these topologies will compare. With any turntable you are hearing the whole package and the drive topology is just one of many pieces. " +++++

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.