Direct Drive turntables

I agree on the post as a whole Raul.
However - "wrong" or "right" will - in the very end - always be up to the individual listeners taste.
There is no absolute here (which is were...) - not in hearing.
Hearing is always a lone and individual one,- and so will be the final judgement about a certain sound systems performance: - individual.
I guess it is indeed rather a matter of different levels of experience.
The seasoned listener to many different systems with a certain technical background will always have a wider foundation - a more solid ground - on which he can make a "judgement".

Dear dertonarm: Agree, so many of us has a lot to learn on the whole subject and try to go up faster in each of us: audio learning curve.

regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Raul, I don't think that the measurement vs listening argument is about accuracy vs tastes. Take for an example an early 70's solid state amplifier. Those amps were made in the height of meter watching. They excel at the measurements that you frequently cite, flat response, low distortion, low output impedance. In spite of exemplary measurements they sound terrible and more to the point they sound nothing like the original performance. So good measurements does not necessarily equal accuracy.

You are correct that the target is to reduce colorations. But colorations (or lack of) cannot be defined by a simple set of measurements, in particular the three you just cited. Otherwise those 70s amps would sound both fantastic and accurate.

Measurements are useful but if we were to make the measurements more important than hearing we would all be listening that lovely 70s technology... well actually most of us would have lost interest and found some other hobby.

I did not propose that the goal of measurements is accuracy. (Although in the determination of platter stability pertinent to belt drive versus direct drive, accuracy of constant rotational speed probably is the goal). For somebody who likes colorations, measurable inaccuracy may be the goal.

For example, Raul cites an audiophile who likes colorations. Raul appears to dislike artificial colorations. It is not my duty or right to tell somebody what they should like. It is conceivable that measurements, graphs and other repeatable and predictive forms of communication could help each of these two audiophiles get what they want.

So, I believe that if a consumer wants pitch stability that is suitable to his personal demands, reliable measurements that describe the differences between the platter rotation of belt drive versus direct drive would help the consumer (and not help turntable manufacturers who don't want to learn and improve).

Dear Teres: I agree on that 70's electronics example.

I want to argue not what happen in the 70's with electronic designs but what we have today. It is clear even today that there are audio items that could measures good but sounds awful because different factors: bad design, bad parts selection, bad execution design, wrong layout, bad quality circuit board material, use of negative feedback in the wrong place or exesive one, use of op-amps or IC chips that for lower distortions use hundreds of negative feedback, etc, etc; but with a decent design and good execution design with the right parts selection and the like something that measures good normally sounds good too.

The understand of mesures and its correlation with what we are hearing is difficult because ( example ) we can have an audio item with very low distortion figures and could sound bad because the distortion measures alone don't tell me the full " history ", we need to know which kind of distortions are generated on that audio item: even/odd harmonics and at what output level, many items has problems because inadequate phase frequency response and many other " ocult " factors that the manufacturer normally not disclose and only through specific measures we can know the why's/where what we are hearing.

Sure that could be that an amplifier with low output impedance ( say: 0.05 ohms. ) can/could sound bad and many examples like this tell us that our first step is that we have to understand what each single measure means, second step we have toknow what to measure, where to measure and how to measure and third ( not last step, there are more. ) how some of those measures are related to give us an answer of what we are hearing. I know is not an easy task but IMHO we all need to start an overall understanding about, this understanding IMHO could help to each one of us to improve the quality performance of what we have at home.

Teres, I'm for accurate good emotional sound: nothing less. If our ears are true trained on music we can discern between a good sound ( colored one ) and a good accurate sound, which one do you prefer?, certainly an accurate one if you are trained to discern it. Problem is that this is more easy to say that to achieve because to have this very high grade of discern require wide experience not only on music but on understanding of the different audio link performance in an audio chain, this means a wide experiences hearing a lot of different audio systems in different environments, in a few words: be an expert! with all what this word means.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.