Has2be, I don’t disagree with the substance of what you wrote, but I am a bit puzzled by the following phrase: "at a time when everyone was dumping belt to manufacture DD because the electronic end was at a rabid pace of growth and precision and yet , Micro Seiki went back to making high end belt/string drives." Just what period of audio history are you thinking about when you write this? The way I experienced it, in the 50s (before I really was a "player" in this game, but not before I was exposed to music in our home), idler drive was if anything the predominant mode (think "Garrard"; Garrard changers were common in even the most sophisticated systems). AR changed the game in the late 60s, when I was finally able to buy my first audio system, with the X model, which of course was the most basic belt drive imaginable. But in the 70s, when the Japanese got into the market in a big way, direct-drive was very fashionable but kind of mid-range-y in quality. True, there were some high end DD turntables made in Japan during a brief golden era, but in parallel the very most expensive turntables were BD (Thorens, Goldmund Reference, etc). By the late 70s/early 80s, DD kind of got dumped in favor of belt drive, largely due to the efforts of Harry Pearson and the Absolute Sound credo. I’m sure Gordon Holt had something to say on this subject, but I don’t recall what it was. Anyway, by the mid-80s, as vinyl dipped in popularity, BD was thought of as the only way to go among aficionados. My point is, I don’t recall any time when belt drive was eclipsed by DD, even temporarily. As for Micro Seiki, they were always basically a high quality BD company; their DD turntables were never competitive with the best of the breed, and I don’t think they ever intended them to be. It's interesting how differently we view the history.
