Direct Drive

The platter will slow down and a belt, thread, tape or rim drive, would slingshot the paltter up to momentary over speed once the high stylus drag reduces.

Thats funny.

My TT platter is 26kg, that you would think that immediately after Horowitz has banged out a C1 fortissimo on his Steinway, that the 26kg platter would suddenly take off into overshoot like your direct drive software going wonky is fanciful.

They also have a different PSU for the P10. maybe because it has a different platter and beefier bearing.

With the P9/10 the power supply is hand tuned to match the specific motor that it is going to drive. In other words the power supply and motor are a matched pair in the P10.

If you want to buy a direct drive turntable you might as well buy a digital front end - its the same sound.

The Rega moved me more but the pitch instability drove me nuts.  I had Wilhelm Kempff playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata where the famous triplets in the First Movement were distorted  to point that I had thought someone slipped acid in my coffee.

I assume on Deutch Gramophone - one of my favourite performances of the Beethoven Sonatas, other than Horowitz. Beautifully balanced top and bottom hand and the piano is nicely miked not too close. The playing is wonderful.

Piano lays bare any pitch instability - rubber belt drives are very susceptible. Some are worse than others.

My 2 TT's use silk thread drive and idler drive - the thread drive being the most pitch stable.

If you must have direct drive why not push the boat out to a new Technics 1200.

A classic that will be reliable and serviceable for years. Having said that there have been wobbly platter issues with the new generation, so beware,

"If you want to buy a direct drive turntable you might as well buy a digital front end - its the same sound."

That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Just because a TT maintains perfect speed as the better DD tables are prone to due doesn’t make it sound digital. 

Bill, I totally agree with you, ABSURD. what a lack of understanding displayed by that statement.

Not really.

Direct drive turntables use error correction, which includes jitter, they do not maintain perfect speed.

One could argue that digital format development has vastly outpaced the antediluvian error correction systems used in old direct drive turntables, and for this reason you might well be better off with a digital source.

@goofyfoot 

@sokogear I can't understand why most Rega owners wouldn't opt for Origin Live tonearms. OL turned the Rega on its head and is considered a bargain.

I can, I have seen piles of OL tonearms at the Rega factory with stuffed bearings.

The venerable Rega RB300 and its successors are probably one the highest selling tonearms to the DIY community.

The top Rega arms are significantly better. The reason you don't see them separately much is that most Rega buyers mostly buy a complete package.

@goofyfoot 

Their early arms were poor - modified Regas.

I haven't seen their latest top arms but they use a different principle with the main bearings. As I understand the OL bearings are "loose" and rely on stylus drag to lock in. Roksan used a similar principle with their Artemiz.

The top Rega arms use traditional gimbal bearings are handbuilt and take many man hours - each part is "blueprinted" and triple checked before during and after assembly.

This is not unique - most of the great arms Breuer, Sumiko MDC800 for example were great, not because of unique design, but because they were hand assembled by a superior artisan. both arms I mentioned were only ever made by 1 person.

@sokogear 

By P9 I mean the old RP9/Rega 9 - I thought you would have known that.

The point was that the top Rega TT's have the power supply tuned/optimised to the actual motor used in that unit.

@goofyfoot 

I use to sell a lot of Audio Technica OC9's which worked particularly well with the Rega arms.

The early Rega moving coils for me we're a bit "hard" sounding - partly I suspect because they had unusual impedance requirements and really sounded best with the Rega phono which used input transformers matched to the cartridge.

However I know someone who has run Shelters & Benz's with the Rega arms with good results and has just taken delivery of the top 2 Rega MC cartridges and is really impressed - they are way better than the older models and ahead of the Benz/Shelter's

Since VTA is not adjustable easily on the Rega arms going with the latest Rega MC's has a big advantage with ease of set up.

Threaded VTA adjusters are available for any Rega mount.

Yes but you need to be careful that they can be locked and rigidly mounted to the armband or plinth.

Some of the early Rega VTA adjusters ended up with the arm simply sitting in the hole.

Actually its not cogging.

The essence of the main difficulties with DD is derived from the fact that a direct drive requires a motor to run at 33rpm - the gearing is 1 to 1. In the old days ( 70's ) it was very difficult to control motors accurately at such a low speed.

The problem is pulsing.

If you run an 8 pole motor @ 33rpm there are effectively 8 poles per revolution ( of the record ).

For a non direct drive, say using the same 8 pole motor at 250rpm ( with gearing either via belt/thread plus pulley or other ) then there are 60 poles per revolution.

If you translate this to a merry-go-round - imagine 8 people pushing it versus 60 people pushing it - which model is smoother in operation. Especially if the "pushers" are uncoordinated, statistically the 60 push model would be much smoother by some margin.

The other issue is error correction.

If you think you cant hear error correction then look no further than the Grand Prix Audio DD turntables.They released a DD with state of the art error correction software using latest computer chips only a few years ago  - "unparalleled speed accuracy " they said.

Well, several upgrades later including some based solely on new updated software algorithms, the sound has miraculous been improved considerably - as confirmed by reviews and owners.

Conversely the main issue with most belt drives is weasel motors, and elastic rubber belts. Replace the rubber with silk thread, which has virtually zero elasticity, a decent motor and inertia in the platter and you get excellent speed stability.

I note the new Kuzma R & M now use rigid polymer belts with a motor that has been designed expressly for this purpose. 

Idler drives can achieve good speed stability, but only if they use decent size motors. My view is the "drive" of idlers" is due not only to the removal of the stretchy rubber belt, but more importantly most of them use decent size AC motors with bags of torque compared to the usual cotton reel sized motors used in most belt drives.

@richardkrebs 

better DD TTs use a 3 phase motor,

Can you provide a list of any DD TT's that use a 3 phase motor.

DD TTs using three phase motors. The new Technics, the SAT, VPI. I'm not sure about the NVS and the Monarch, but would be surprised if they weren't three phase, given their quality. Then of course there is the motor I build and install into my K3 design 

@richardkrebs 

So none of the 3 phase motored DD TT's are available under US$40k.

Any of the vintage use DD's use 3 phase motors ?

It would appear that the 3 phase argument you proposed is only as relevant in as much that only about 0.0000001% at most of DD TT's ever sold actually use a 3 phase motor. That would mean statistically your argument is irrelevant.