Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

Hello Lewm,

I am well aware of the potential. Acoustat had model X which had the OTL directly driving full range panels.
My "issues" with panels are not how hard they are to drive.
I am well aware of their strengths. My issues is maybe my own personal perception but panels always make me analyze the music instead of listening to it and immersing myself in it. They give me an illusion that the voices come from outer space but the cavity of instruments are missing somehow as if the cavity was blocked or instruments were much flatter than what they really are. To me they sound like they miss the resonances of a stringed instrument but panel guys will say I miss box colorations, which is maybe the case.
Hard to explain why panels sound like that to me, but perhaps it has to do with mid-bass cancelation due to the dipole construction (destructive interference in physics). In addition, I always panels as coherent from the midrange and up but not so from lower mid-range to the deep bass.
I believe that some people are more sensitive to upper frequencies and some are more sensitive to lower frequencies and then you have the horns, which I could never warm up to due to my own preferences in sound reproduction.
In the end, at the highest echelons of audio, when clarity is achieved, our hearing and perception defers and everyone has his own preferences.
Otherwise we were all owning the same exact system, which would have made this hobby pretty boring…:-)

Doron, I misunderstood. Some people like olives and some don't. That's cool. As for me, I have yet to hear any box speaker I could live with, knowing that I could also have what I do have as an alternative. (I don't use the term "panel" speaker, as there are many kinds of panel speakers, e.g., Magnepans, which I do not wish to include in my endorsement. Nor do I feel the same enthusiasm about all ESLs, only certain ones.)

Agree. Not all panels are created equal. I agree with you on the Magnepan.
I heard Martin Logan, King-Sound, Quad ESL and various models of Acoustat including 2+2, 3, 33, 4, 66.
The best of best of the lot was 3 located between two rooms (so it had almost the same distance to the back wall as to the front wall) with very high ceiling in the listening room. Dipole powered sub (two woofers back to back) included.
Driven by push pull tube amps and by OTL's.
Sound stage is huge, clarity is unparalleled, background is pitch black and it's quite dynamic too, unlike Quad ESL 57.
Probably the best implementation of ESL I hand ever heard.
Again, depending on source material, to my ears, mid bass was missing and bass to midrange connection was not to my liking.
Its a very impressive big orchestral pieces material. Just not one that I can personally live with. I am missing the wood:-)
Its interesting that in speaker choices there are camps:
Horn guys can never settle for anything else, ESL ditto (they are very sensitive to "box colorations" and to what they describe as separate drivers rather than one coherent sound wave, at least in the mid to upper frequency) and box speakers guys are also pretty stubborn in their choice.
In the end speaker choices are like "choosing" your wife:
She is not perfect but she is perfect for you, if you know what I mean:-)
I never changed my main "lowly" Sonus Faber Grand Piano Home speakers after hearing countless other speakers, including, comparing them, in the same room to "higher end" Sonus Faber speakers. Just to show there is a reason why I chose them in the first place,
The main thing is to chose a pair of speakers that work in your room (can't over emphasize that because speakers are never one size fits all) and to work with them rather than becoming a "speaker womanizer" who swaps speakers left right and centre to never assume each spraker's potential rather than picking a pair and find out how to make them sing.
Just my opinion based on my experience.

I have noticed that some of the members here had experience witn Lenco and other idler wheels as well and was wondering what was your impression of the results compared to a DD in a heavy plinth.
My experience is limited to a friend's JN Reference with Analogue Instruments, 12" Cocobolo, Uni-pivot tonearm and various cartridges (SAE 1000 LT, Koetsu Black, low output Elac).
On the plus side:This combo had very good flow and sounded very smooth.
On the negative side: noise floor was high, which made dynamic contrasts lacking. Air, 3D and detail were missing.
A while ago, 3 audiophiles from Canada conducted a "Lenco Challenge": building a CNC machined, heavy birch plywood plinth for a donated Lenco drive, greasing the bearing and following The Lenco Heaven instructions.
Results were not super positive when compared to modern tt's like DD Brinkmann Bardo for instance:
http://www.canuckaudiomart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=28246&hilit=lenco+project+brinkmann&start=285

I was wondering what was your experience?

I personally use other peoples' opinions only in the grossest way, as a guide to what I might NOT like. Which is why I usually don't even ask. This is because my brain already knows what it wants, and I've already spent decades taking my brain to where it wants to be. I own a Lenco in a slate plinth with a "PTP" top plate (see Lenco Heaven). The OEM bearing is completely replaced by a "Jeremy" Superbearing (see also Lenco Heaven). The platter is stock, but it has been dampened. The idler wheel and idler arm are stock, but I have replaced a spring that loads the idler assembly with a lead weight on a string. This was the idea of Jean Nantais, possibly one of the Canadians to whom you refer. I have a Dynavector DV505 mounted on the slate. The AC comes from a Walker Precision Motor Controller. This combo gives me great pleasure, plenty of "air", dynamics, 3D-ness, whatever. It may be a hair less super accurate on timing, compared to my Technics SP10 Mk3 and Kenwood L07D, but if you don't compare it to those two every day, you don't worry about it or notice a problem. It definitely crushes the prior turntable, a Notts Hyperspace, in terms of timing, but I thought the Notts crushed the SOTA I owned before that, especially on piano music. You mentioned noise; I hear zero issues with noise, but again the Mk3 and the Kenwood (especially) may be a hair quieter. No idler noise that I can hear whilst sitting in my listening chair at normal (loud-ish) sound pressure levels. I think (very tentatively) that the slate plinth is superior to the Nantais plinth Lenco I owned prior to embarking on the slate project, less noise by a tad.

Sorry to all. I think I wrote much the same post only a few days ago up the page.