Direct Drive turntables


I have been using belt drive tt's. I see some tt's around using direct drive and they are by far not as common as belt drive ones. Can someone enlighten me what are the pros and cons of direct drive vs belt drive on the sound? and why there are so few of direct drive tt's out there?
Thanks
alectiong

Showing 1 response by aoliviero

As many have pointed out, there are many variables to contend with (vibration control, tonearms, cartridges, etc) when trying to compare a BD to DD. Unless everything is equal, it is diffcult to say which is better.

From a theoretical standpoint, it may be easier to say which has better speed stability. If one then picks the better spped stable device and then focuses on correcting the shortcomings of that particular design then one is onto something. I think Johnnyb3 and detonarm were onto something in their threads.

It would appear that a good DD has better speed stability than BD but the particular features of tt's which use this DD drive system may detract from its speed stability (e.g., vibration control, etc). While a BD may not have as good of speed stability, TT's using BD could be better at other aspects, making the overall sound better.

Key would be to marry the speed stability of DD's without all of the shortcomings of tables whcih use this system.

Happy new year.