EMT 927 vs. Micro Seiki 5000 or 8000 - different?

Dear Nandric, the stylus drag is a (if small in "value") constant "brake". This loss of speed has to be taken into account. Devices like the Sutherland stroboscope do verify the existence of stylus drag. Simple cure: adjust speed WITH the stylus on the record (i.e. while stylus drag occurs).
Cheers,
D.

Nicola - as long as the elephant doesn't see the mouse - otherwise you will have big big problems.

All manufacturers of belt drives I have owned and a current TNT with SDS - recommend checking of platter speed with stylus in the groove.

Cheers Chris

Dear Chris, I thought about the 'tank' instead of the elephant because I already anticipated such comment. But in literary sense this made no sense to me. But I was not able to find some military equivalent for the mouse.
This is the usual problem with methaphoric expressions because nobody can resist the chance to tease. However I deed mentioned that my speed check was with the stylus in the groove. I also asked for the data of the forces involved but this is somehow overlooked...

Dear Dover, "direct drive"? You hear speed instability in a direct drive turntable? All of them or one or two samples? A truly vintage direct drive turntable that has not been serviced can manifest speed instability due to aging capacitors, but the technology is not in any way speed unstable per se. If you hear speed instability in a direct drive turntable or if speed is grossly unstable by observation of the typical built-in strobe, then the table is defective.

I am not qualified really to hold forth on belt creep. Instead I can recommend that you go to Vinyl Asylum and do a search on that term. Then read the relevant posts by Mark Kelly. Belt creep is not incurable, by the way, as Mark shows. But also take a look at the Artemis turntable, where the belt travels around a capstan so as to nearly fully encircle the platter, a la one remedy suggested by Mark and others. But really I did not mean to detract from your pleasure with your turntable or to infer that it cannot be fantastic just because of this theoretical issue. I apologize if you got that message.

Dear Nandric, the VTF seems trivial but when you consider the very tiny area over which that downward force is distributed (the contact between LP and stylus tip), then the force per unit of area is very very large. This is not to say that I don't also have trouble with the concept. Nevertheless, all empiric and circumstantial evidence suggests it is a real phenomenon.