Is Direct Drive Really Better?

I would add, at what point does the stylus drag and micro speed variations in a high end turntable fall below the speed stability of

a) The cutting lathe
b) The master tape recorder
c) The 2" multi-track tape source

so that the turntable is now more accurate than the LP it is playing ?

I must admit Chris's post comparing analog speed variation to timing jitter in digital is quite thought provoking ... I'd never thought of them in the same way, but in retrospect it's obvious that they cause similar distortions to the waveform.

Jejune, Not even close to the 1200. The Teres DD table will be flagship offering. It's both difficult and expensive to do DD right.

I thought the big belt drive Teres tables were flagships. If this DD thing is even more expensive then mebbe the 4yanx was right but sooner than he thought.

Since Teres makes one of the leading belt drive tables and has made quite a name for itself in so doing, I would say that their announcement weighs heavily in favor of DD superiority.
Again the question ------ at what price point?
Like Viridian, I value actual experience over projections and calculations and I suspect Chris at Teres has experimented with and tested turntables more in the last several years than all of us put together. For him to change directions so radically, I have to assume that he found more than just a likelihood that DD has greater potential than the belt drive with which he has enjoyed so much success.

There is no reason to believe that micro speed variations in turntables would be inaudible simply for the reason than that they are of a lesser magnitude than those present in the lathe or recorder. After all, we can hear music around 15 to 20 db down into the noise floor of a record. The fact that there are other speed distortions that are present does not mean that those distortions have the same spectra and period as the ones in the turntable drive system. And, by extension, there are no clear reason to believe that other speed variations in the chain would "mask" variations in the drive system or even mitigate their audiblilty.

Good enough that a direct drive offering from Teres is in the works.

I've said before and it is in the archives: the Teres is a direct drive in drag.

With psychic power and primal intensity,