Direct drive vs belt vs rim vs idler arm

Lewm - he didn't say elastic belt drive, he said belt drive. My silk thread "belt" does not stretch, the ac motor doesn't cog, and I dont get belt creep whatever that is. According to both the Timeline and KAB the speed on my deck is rock steady. I have dispensed with both a 301/401 so I know what those idlers sound like - musical but far far away from state of the art in resolution & transparency.
I agree with you they are all flawed, but which has the least flaws.

Truly, as Rhett Butler said, I don't give a damn.
I respect all of our opinions, and really being happy with one's turntable is all that counts. For me, in practice, there is such a thing as "good enough". The theoretical discussions are a separate bit of play.

For a definition of "belt creep", which is a factor for any conventional belt-drive turntable where the belt travels around a pulley that is some distance from the edge of the platter, go to Vinyl Asylum and search on the phrase. There you will find Mark Kelly's explanation. To a large degree, the phenomenon can be mitigated by having the motor pulley as close to the platter as possible, a la Nottingham, or better yet by having the belt completely encircle the platter, or nearly so. I believe the DPS or Artemis table (one or the other) nearly achieves that by employing a separate capstan. Also, the 47 Labs tt takes a shot at it.

By the way, Mr. Dover, where did you get an AC motor that doesn't cog? Can you describe it?

The belt creep that Mark Kelly expounds assumes the belt stretches and thins slightly, ergo if the belt doesn't stretch then there is no belt creep.
Japan. Big and round.
There are lots of ways to reducing or eradicating cogging, varying the ratio of slots to poles, angled slots or stators, variable drive applied to the motor windings, running the motor at high speed etc
In the Final Audio it uses an AC synchronous motor with precisely controlled regenerated sine/cosine waves for the motor and variable voltage regulation to optimise the torque applied to the moving high mass/high inertia platter. I can actually dial in cogging via the torque controller if someone likes to listen to that.

Motor speed control circuits have to be designed for the various types of drives. For belt drive tt's the circuits must likely be tuned specifically for the belt compliance/platter mass being used. DD tt's must have altogether different speed control circuits as compared to idler or belt drive. Back to belt drive; I think changing belt types on a tt affects the sound because the spring rate of the belt has changed thereby affecting the dynamic response of the system. The speed control circuits are designed around a specific set of parameters including the belt type. Changing belt types alters the spring rate side of the equation and may make the table sound better or possibly worse. It might be hit or miss. The same goes for adding mass to the platter.
You have to try the Dr. Feickert Analogue iPhone/iPad app. I think it is a killer app. You need a test record with a 3150Hz test tone. You can order one through the maker of this app or in my case, I have a test record with a 3150Hz test tone. This app does three things; it lets you dial in platter speed while the cartridge is tracking in the groove, it analyzes and computes your table's Wow&Flutter (it automatically filters out the record's runout which can accentuate Wow&Flutter) and it charts your platter's speed over time. My particular tt has Wow&Flutter measuring +0.02%/-0.03%. That is within specifications. The speed plot over time shows a small, smooth sinusoidal wave. That might be motor cogging smoothed out by the platter mass, but I think it might be the motor speed controller cycling about the setpoint. I measured the speed of an old Oracle tt and it did a little better than my tt. It had a Wow&Flutter measurement of +0.01%/-0.01%. It also had a smooth, low frequency sine wave for speed vs. time. The Oracle was harder to adjust and dial-in an exact speed of 33 1/3. I would really like to hear from others how their idler drive and direct drive tt's compare with the speed vs time plotted by this app. It might give us some insight into why the different drive systems sound different.