I must point out the Reed drive system is a different genre from the traditional idler drive turntable like Garrard 301 or EMT 930. The idler wheel is part of the pulley and motor on Reed, whereas in a Garrard the motor shaft drives the idler wheel to drive the platter. The Garrard rubber idler wheel is the interface in between and keeps the metal to metal relationship, which is the system I prefer. The Reed or TTW or Teres Versa "direct couple" approach I suspect is prone to speed issue if the wheel is not perfectly round or smooth. The Garrard style is more forgiving. Sound wise, let your ears decide.
Do top Idler drive tables fall short to top belt drives in any particular area.
In the current Reed table thread, a user makes mention that he compared running it in Idler mode, and then using a belt. He goes on to write, the belt was superior with decay, and I believe more organic sounding as well. Please don't fault me if I used the wrong word, but that's what I got out of reading it. Certainly it's tough to generalize, since there are always more variables than the turntable itself. I auditioned the Brinkmann Bardo and Spyder tables last year. I understand I'm talking DD vs Belt in this case, but please stay with me. I easily preferred the Belt driven Spyder, to it's DD counterpart. I found decay to be one of the areas where the Spyder won out. It was more organic, and I heard subtle spatial cues that were not as discernable with the Bardo. Now that I'm considering a Garrard 301 in a well implemented wood plinth, this all has me curious to say the least.