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Are more turntable motors better?

I did a quick search of the archives and couldn't find a thread about this, feel free to show me if I didn't look hard enough. Question is: are more motors better in a belt-driven table? Seems like pricier models are always more likely to have more motors, and manufacturers offer addtional motors as upgrades, but does it always result in improved sound? Theoretically, additional motors may tend to cancel out each others speed fluctuations, but overall noise may be higher. Thoughts?
klinerm
klinerm OP
79 posts
 
Well, I guess I'm going to finish up my own thread. I've now had the opportunity to listen to my Final Tool through a quite high end system with 1, 2, & 3 motors for a few weeks, and it's in my opinion a no-brainer that 1 motor sounds best. Of course, this finding probably will not generalize to all turntables on the market.
audioquest4life
401 posts
 
From my experience, having had only one 1 motor and then upgrading to 3 later on with my Transrotor turntable, I think the merits are both from what the designer puts and what the customer wants. I decided to go with a 3 motor setup after upgrading to a 80MM platter which was twice as heavy as the other stock 40MM platter that was on before. I wanted to go this route because I wanted to add extra torque capacity at startup to enable to platter to spin-up to speed from a cold start. With one motor and one belt, it took some time and it was noticeable, with the heavy platter upgrade, the manufacturer suggested the 3 motor route...the motors did not change, I mean it was the same motor either with one or 3 motors, but there is no noise at all, and the Transrotor speed controller allows me to monitor the variances in speed and make on the fly changes as needed in case I need to.

I know some state that a high torque motor is capable of driving a heavy platter with no problem but the Transrotor motors, I am not sure who makes these are so quiet and work great for me and I am not sure if they are high torque or not. That is where the ultimate decision lies, what works for you as a customer, it is your decision based on your own parameters. Good luck.

Ciao,
Audioquest4life
dan_ed
2,451 posts
 
That is where the ultimate decision lies, what works for you as a customer, it is your decision based on your own parameters.

Absolutely. We all have different ideas on what we can or cannot live with. I.e., start up is not an issue for me since I have come to prefer leaving my table running during an entire session. I get off on details of the music so I prefer the resolution of a single motor with tape belt. But I do admit that there are many multi-motor setups I have not heard. FWIW.

I would suspect that a multi-motor solution from the turntable manufacturer would give the best results with such a configuration. Adapting across lines can get tricky, but it is certainly possible.
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