Why three motors?

T_bone: "Any idea what the tonearm with the wooden armpipe is?"

It's a German tonearm made of ebony.
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One of the explanations about the belt arrangement I read is that it simulates an idler wheel with low contact area. If that's the design intention I found that unconvincing. The three motor set up with such belt arrangement has been discontinued by the manufacturer so I have to assume the designer no longer endorse such approach.

Here's a lively discussion about the design.

Again, I found the belt arrangement to be half-baked until someone can explain it to me otherwise.

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Various three motor turntables in different belt arrangement, either single belt or triple belts and all of them have the platter touching THREE sides of the belts.

Audionote

Transrotor

Clearaudio

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Hi Hiho, well - thanks for posting those three 3-motor-drive contenders. They all share the very same set-up - as far as geometry goes. All using a 3-side-symmetrical approach. Somehow logic and going along with the common sense of mechanics in providing a force-vector free bearing in the horizontal plane. I guess we still haven't found the true idea behind the Raven's 3-motor-drive.

I have read a thread in the past Clearaudio with 3 motors sounded best with only 1 belt. this guy has experimented with all possible configuration and found the sound to improve significantly with only 1 belt. his hypothesis was 3 motors + 3 belts variation is higher than 3 motors + 1 belt variation, therefore using 1 belt vs. 3 reduces the overall variation produced by the drivetrain. YMMV.

I really should have changed the titled question from "Why three motors?" to "Why such belt arrangement?"

I am less interested in why using three motors but in why they arrange the belt in a 3-motor design that only one side of the belt is touching the platter.

If they use four motors, the belt would not touch the platter at all! Perhaps that's the best sound in having the blackest background.

Syntax: "Simple answer: That's Higher End"

So far that's the best answer.

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