My personal experience with Direct Drive versus Belt Drive


This is my personal , yet limited experience, with a DD versus Belt Drive. This A/B took place in the same system. with literally the same tonearm. I am choosing not to mention brands at this point. I feel by keeping the brand out of the discussion, anyone who contributes to the the thread (myself included), can be a bit more forthcoming. I am not big on audiophile jargon, so I will keep this short and sweet. I started with DD, in a system which I was very familiar with. The room of course, was different. The DD struck me as near perfect. I could hear the starting and stopping on a dime, and the near perfect timing that many have associated with the DD.  It didn't take long at all for me to conclude this was not my cup of tea. It satisfied my brain, but didn't move my heart. Maybe I was used to the imperfect sound of belt drives, and it was indeed that imperfection, that made for an emotional experience. Who knows? (-: Fast forward to the belt drive.... Again, same actual arm. It sounded more analog to me. Decay was much more easy to hear, along with subtle spatial cues. Was it the less than perfect timing, that was allowing me to now hear these things I could not with the DD?  I have no clue! What I was sure about was the emotion of the music had returned.
fjn04

Showing 3 responses by lancelock

I had a very highly regarded belt drive TT for the last 4 years and loved it. I now have a new DD TT with coreless motor and it just blows away my old belt drive TT. There are also too many variables here to make a good direct comparison between the two TT's but I'm just saying I really like the DD sound.

I went from a Scout 1.1 with Zepher cart to a SL1200GAE with an AT ART9 cart. The Art 9 is a special cartridge but I did keep the Zepher MI cart before selling the VPI. I will be getting another head shell and putting the Zepher back in and then I will report back with a better idea of the differences between the two TT's.

I absolutely love my new SL1200GAE. I got another head shell and installed my old Zepher cart that I was using with my Scout 1.1 so I could make a better comparison. The SL1200 sounds superior in every way I can think of, superior PRAT and the DD motor is dead silent. Increased jump factor and dynamics. This TT is the real deal. This is not to say the Scout is a light weight. I enjoyed the VPI Scout for the last four years but I am firmly in the DD camp now.