Direct Drive turntables

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.

Dertonarm,

absolutely oil pressure bearing and maybe magnetic all serve the function it seems to me - which is to remove the impact of noise transmission from the drive system. If you think about it, typical bearing systems are rather crude whatever material, stainless, ruby, ceramic etc. By reducing the coefficient of friction one has to also reduce the impact of physically induced vibration, noise and mechanical artifacts from the platter. I have not really thought about this too hard, but heavy metal platters would probably amplify noise that will be transmitted through the sensitive cartridge. Could be something that Teres and Redpoint and Galibier figured as they have experimented with varying platter materials?

Steve