Quiddity, take another look at my post. I merely pointed out that a lot of belt drive machines get away with using weaker motors, not that **all** of them do.
The motor I use in my machine has a lot of torque and behaves very much like a second flywheel in the table. It is the Pabst motor from 40 years ago- one of the better motors to be installed in a turntable. FWIW the l'oiseau lyre LPs sound great on it- despite being belt drive.
Doug, if you really want to get the inside story of what sounds right on an LP, I strongly recommend that you take a recording from the mics right to the finished LP. Do it with a 2-mic recording of natural instruments, like you mentioned. This is very handy for developing a reference because being at the session itself, you will know exactly what the recording is supposed to sound like.
BTW although we have sold a number of our 'model 208' turntables (http://www.atma-sphere.com/products/208.html), its not a regular production thing for us by any means nor have we any intention of making it so. It just seemed an obvious update path for the original machine.
The motor I use in my machine has a lot of torque and behaves very much like a second flywheel in the table. It is the Pabst motor from 40 years ago- one of the better motors to be installed in a turntable. FWIW the l'oiseau lyre LPs sound great on it- despite being belt drive.
Doug, if you really want to get the inside story of what sounds right on an LP, I strongly recommend that you take a recording from the mics right to the finished LP. Do it with a 2-mic recording of natural instruments, like you mentioned. This is very handy for developing a reference because being at the session itself, you will know exactly what the recording is supposed to sound like.
BTW although we have sold a number of our 'model 208' turntables (http://www.atma-sphere.com/products/208.html), its not a regular production thing for us by any means nor have we any intention of making it so. It just seemed an obvious update path for the original machine.