Idler wheel drive vs Belt


I noticed in the last day a frenzied bidding on an EMT 930 (plus arm/cartridge, etc) that went for $6.5Gs. Lots of money for a vintage kit. I also read some laudatory comments on the venerable Garrard 301 with boutique plinths. Anybody out there have experience with such, and can comment on whether I should abandon my purchase of a Teres and go for a 'transcription' turntable like Garrard 501 (with Schroeder DPM). Those vintage designs have lots of torque as they were used in radio stations, but don't seem to have close tolerance bearings or heavy platters. Yet some have thrown some serious positive comments on these vintage solutions. Is the magic real, and what contributes to it?
(I am not going to blow $6G on an EMT930 any day soon).
divo
This suggests that there have been some major improvements. Do you know what they are?
tbg....did your sp10 have the technics base/plinth or did you have it in a higher quality plinth and isolated correctly?
C123666, It had a polished volcanic rock plinth. I did not know they came any other way. This was nearly 30 years ago.
I just found a picture of it. It was obsidian. I recall it being bigger than the unit shown, but maybe that was because it was so long ago. I think I had the 205 arm not the 100 shown at http://www.xs4all.nl/~rabruil/sp10page.html