Turntable speed accuracy

This is an interesting discussion with philosophical, theoretical and practical elements. I am not in any way an advanced thinker or practitioner on things analog. However, I don't think anyone has addressed these issues with respect to a mylar tape drive, which is essentially inelastic. I will say that I believe that unless you have perfect pitch, I would think that it would be better to have a TT whose speed has better precision than accuracy. IOW, within certain bounds, speed stability is more important than speed accuracy. A table that runs at 33.6 rpm, +/- 0.05 rpm, would be preferable to a table that runs at 33.3 rpm, +/- 0.5 rpm. I made those #s up to illustrate my point; I have no idea how audible those variations would be but I hope you get my point.

Dear Swampwalker,
Please look HERE

Dear Swampy, Halcro may be trying to tell you that we have covered the territory of your query, and "we" tend to agree with you, I think. I certainly do.

Halcro Good work and thank you for your time spent on this.

I know that I am pitch sensitive and I believe it is most important perceptual feature in music.
Which is why I have never been satisfied with any of the belt drive turntables that I have owned so far.

But in general, a good direct-drive motor WiLL have more torque than a good belt-drive motor.

As a generalization that is incorrect. A DD drive has to spin at 33 1/3 rpm. In a belt drive, there is a tremendus amplification of torque of the motor afforded by the ratio between the motor diameter and that of the platter diameter. Add to that the possibility of a powerful motor, and you see what I mean. By no means is this an excuse to use a weenie little motor to drive a 20 pound platter though.

As an example the Atma-Sphere 208 is up to speed in 1/2 a revolution- not that far off from the SP-10, which gets there in 1/4 of a turn. Most of the delay on the 208 is the belt slipping on the motor, as it is up to speed before you can take your finger off of the 'On' button.

However the platter of the SP-10 is about triple that of the 208 in weight. The SP-10 in particular is an exceptional turntable, and thoroughly disproves that old idea that DD was somehow flawed. But it is the exception rather than the rule regarding DD, IOW the SP-10 motor has more torque than most any other motor in use in turntables. I am sure that is a large part of why it works so well. A robust drive is really important in a good turntable!