Is Direct Drive Really Better?

Zaikes: Regarding:

Albert? You getting one of these for review to go with those racks? Now there would be a DD vs. BD showdown for you.

The answer is yes. I am assigned to do the advertising photography for Grand Prix Audio for this new turntable. I will do a review too if it sounds really good.

Although, to make things fair, I wish I had a Kuzma arm to mount on the GP. Two linear trackers and belt versus direct drive. As it stands I could get a Schroeder, an SME and maybe a Morch. Will have to wait and see.

Cool. Of course, even with a linear arm there'd still be the difference of air-bearings vs. conventional bearings. And at this level, I'd frankly expect resonant signature to trump drive type overall (you'd think that would be a strong point for anything from Grand Prix), but suspect each will have its strengths. If it's even close to a draw though, that would tend to support the view that DD can't be dismissed on nothing but facile principle. If it's not even in close in favor of the Walker however, it would probably be unfair to draw general conclusions regarding drive type.

It’s not possible to rule out all the variables in this audition. Even assuming the Walker and GP with the EXACT same cartridge (my Koetsu Jade Platinum Signature), one of these tone arms may favor the Jade more or less than another.

Then, add in my personal taste as well as how my own system is tuned with my current Walker Proscenium as the reference.

I've always loved linear trackers, owned at least seven 'em. Of course everyone says the latest designs from Schroeder and Morch are supposed to give linear track a run for their money. Factor in cost and we have an impossible task.

I think the best I could do is explain what I hear in my system and let everyone decide if it means anything or not. What's important is we are all discussing how great analog is. I think that's more important than WHICH system work for each person.

Raul,
I'm in general agreement that measured numbers determine the accuracy, but I will take issue on one small nit-picky area.

Lumping of wow and flutter is misleading, because I suspect that the frequency distribution of the wow and flutter noise will have a very pronounced effect on the perception of sound quality, just as it does with digital jitter.

I could have a table that had lousy wow measurement at 0.5Hz, but I suspect it would be much more pleasant to listen to than a better measured table with wow around 2kHz, right in the midband.

I truly believe in measurements and a scientific approach to audio, but often the most difficult thing is knowing exactly what to measure.

This has been a really fascinating debate, by the way, and I hope one day I'll have the time and/or the money to try a few more of the tables out there.

Just a thought. How many YEARS passed before it was recognized that one side of Miles' "Kind of Blue" was recorded and released off-speed? When the second side, recorded at the right speed, was available for comparison all the time? So much for our sensitivity to speed accuracy.