Davide256, With all due respect, you are wrong. Linn is OK right after the suspension is tuned and for the next week thereafter. AR and SOTA, up to and perhaps not including their very latest TOTL models, are seriously flawed as regards speed stability. My SOTA Star Sapphire III was a distortion generator on piano music. Have you ever heard a real piano? Do you really like stretch-y belts and belt creep that much? And AR? A classic, yes. A bargain in its day, yes. But an example of how to build a speed-stable tt? Puh-leeeeeze.
Also and parenthetically, you don't understand the mechanism of a direct-drive turntable. I think I mentioned this to you somewhere above this last post. Do some reading on this subject. The issue in direct-drive is not noise but designing a motor that is free of cogging at slow speed. (The DD motor has to turn at 33 rpm, whereas belt drive and idler drive motors turn much faster. This tends to make them noisier than DD, not quieter, but a little easier to mask the cogging effect.}
But the syntax of your post actually suggests you like direct-drive better than belt drive. (You start with your criticism of direct drive and then begin your discussion of belt drive with the phrase "next best", implying dd is better, which it actually is when done right, IMO.)
Also and parenthetically, you don't understand the mechanism of a direct-drive turntable. I think I mentioned this to you somewhere above this last post. Do some reading on this subject. The issue in direct-drive is not noise but designing a motor that is free of cogging at slow speed. (The DD motor has to turn at 33 rpm, whereas belt drive and idler drive motors turn much faster. This tends to make them noisier than DD, not quieter, but a little easier to mask the cogging effect.}
But the syntax of your post actually suggests you like direct-drive better than belt drive. (You start with your criticism of direct drive and then begin your discussion of belt drive with the phrase "next best", implying dd is better, which it actually is when done right, IMO.)