Thuchan nailed it.
"If you ever had a chance to look into the motor design of a big Studer Tape machine or at the big EMTs you know what motor design could be at its best. This is how professionals do it. Maybe we are used to deal a little to much with the consumer audio works..."
The Studer uses a proprietary 3-phase eddy current motor with an external rotor. This, as Papst would call it, is an "Aussenlaufer", or electric flywheel motor. The Studer is particularly low torque, but is very stable and quiet. Neumann used similar designs in their studio equipment, except those were significantly more powerful, but noisier. The Neumann motors are the big brothers to the ones we find in Empire and Rek-O-Kut turntables, and go a long way to explain why people continue to be enamored with those cheap vintage turntables.
EMT used a variety of motors, but all were large in comparison to most modern turntables, and some followed suite with the solutions offered by Studer and Papst.
The bottomline, in my opinion, is that many of today's makers of turntables sacrifice a bit of performance for assured motor silence and ease of construction. Many users expect the more positive aspects of their decision, but listeners of the old high performance machines don't put stethoscopes to the plinths. They tend to spend more of their time listening to music and tapping their feet.
Caveat:
Regardless of the findings of the old reputable manufacturers, (and the opinions of Thuchan and me) there are smaller, less powerful turntables that deliver music very, very well. Audio is filled with flavors, you know.
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