Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

Lew,
There are photos of both the GT2000 and 2000x at Vintage Knob. Stock aluminum platter is pretty hefty at nearly 13 lbs. The x platter looks similar, but is gun-metal. The motor shaft on the x is beefed up to 6cm vs 2cm for the 2000, but apparently the rest of the motor was the same.
The heavy platter was an option on the 2000 so I guess the shaft could handle the weight.

How do you think these Yamaha's stack up?

Fleib
How do you think these Yamaha's stack up?

There certainly are many GT-2000 owners about, as to how they
stack up there was a thread that Jcarr posted regarding a {Japan forum} where a Victor motor designer who had a hand in the GT2000 design pursued the Yamaha and ended up taking it home.

I thought it a rather fitting endorsement.

Found it
Jcarr
There is an interesting Japanese webpage by a retired JVC engineer, in which he talks about his involvement in designing the motor drive and controller circuits for the slotless DD motor of Yamaha's GT-2000.

note, several pages
http://37282.diarynote.jp/200708032337340000/

The glass platter mat arrived yesterday beautifully packaged and included an ingenious silicone rubber record puck which squeezes the record onto the the vinyl without adding weight over the spindle..😎
The glass mat is beautifully made and I tested it on its own as well as with the Victor Pigskin mat both under and over it.
It was easy to dismiss the silicone puck as being inferior in sound to the heavy Yamaha record weight I usually employ...😊
To cut a long story short....the results were quite similar in all respects to the Achromat with the glass being slightly better....
The clear winner was again the Jico thin leather mat....
As always....YMMV..👀❓

Totem395,
Thanks for the info. It seems like torque or lack of, and speed correction circuitry are major contributors to SQ of various DD's. I saw a GT2000 years ago, but never had the pleasure of playing with it. If the motor can power a 18kg platter, one would think it's a bit much for the stock 5.8kg one?

I'm sure it sounds good. I was just wondering about comparisons. An anecdote about a Victor engineer is interesting, but.....
Regards,

My impression from touring Tokyo audio salons is that the GT2000 is much more commonly seen for sale these days than are some of the other TOTL vintage direct-drive turntables. This can only mean that many more of them were sold vs for example the SP10 Mk3 or the Exclusive P3/P3a. However, I have seen a GT2000X only in those photos on Vintage Knob, never saw one in "real life". Thus I missed the point that the GT2000X has the heavy platter; I thought it was distinguished only by its more massive plinth. All of that said, I have never heard either Yamaha. One criticism I read was of the tonearm. It is apparently made at least in part of plastic, probably some high-tech plastic but plastic, nevertheless. There was an article detailing the fact that those tonearms can develop stress fractures (maybe on Vintage Knob???). I don't know if this applies to all tonearms supplied with the GT2000 and GT2000X or only a particular one.

Does anyone here own a GT2000/X? How about a Luxman or Onkyo TOTL direct-drive? Those last two seem really rare to find these days.