High mass vs Low Mass Turntables - Sound difference?

"Acceleration ( movement/vibration ) = Mass x Force. If you have less force or less mass(of the moving parts), then Acceleration ( movement/vibration ) is reduced."

I don’t know what force, mass, or acceleration you are addressing, but your equation is wrong. Newton’s First Law of Motion says F=ma, Force = Mass X Acceleration. Then, Acceleration is equal to the Force divided by the mass. Therefore if you have less force (or torque in this case, because you are talking about an angular Force), you get less acceleration, which actually makes sense. But if you have less mass to be pushed around by a force, then acceleration due to that force increases.

As a consequence, your next sentence, "In any case - *in general*...reducing the forces/movement inside a turntable will reduce acceleration and therefore vibration." Is also incorrect, even if I am not sure how you are equating acceleration with vibration.

Avanti, On many counts, your analysis is not entirely correct.  Without going through all the arguments, if you like belt-drive you want the pulley and the platter to be as similar in diameter as practical, and as close together, center to center, as practical. This reduces belt-creep and enhances transfer of motor torque to the platter.  Also, why does having a small pulley driving a large diameter platter prolong motor and bearing life? The motor has to spin faster in inverse proportion to the ratio of the diameters of pulley and platter, which I would think would tend to shorten motor life.  Ditto for the bearings, especially the motor bearings. Belt life; that's a toss-up.  But just the fact of using a belt places side stress on both motor and turntable bearings.

Czarivey, You own one of the few LT tonearms that operate as you describe.  I believe Mr Rabinow invented the idea of having a little motor move the tonearm in increments, when it makes contact with a tiny switch located back behind the pivot.  Like you say, this assures that the Rabco tonearms (and the Goldmund TF tonearms which copy Rabcos) are swinging in tiny arcs across the surface of the LP, for good or ill.  But most modern LT tonearms are either riding on an air bearing (with a rigid 90-degree connection between the arm wand and the air-borne carriage) or gliding downhill toward the center of the LP because of dishing of the LP surface, a la the Souther.

LT tonearms still need to be set for azimuth.  LT tonearms need to place the stylus tip exactly on the radius of the LP, from the edge to the center of the spindle, else they are always tracking at an angle, and off-center LPs offer the same set of problems for an LT tonearm as for a pivoted one.  Then you've got the air pumps, leveling of the platter, etc, etc.  No free lunch.  But if that's your cup of tea....

Also, LT tonearms are problematic on light weight, suspended turntables.

Instability of the azimuth setting is precisely what turned me against the WT tonearm.  My long time friend had a WT Reference.  The tonearm could be seen to "roll" from right to left, changing azimuth all across the surface of an LP.  I like to think this design flaw has been corrected in more recent versions of WT, like in the Amadeus, but I have never operated an Amadeus.  I do know it is much loved. But that's one of the first things one expects of a tonearm; hold the settings stable.  It's like saying you have a great turntable, except it doesn't hold speed.

Apples and Oranges.  The Townshend damping trough is a whole different thing from the bearing at the pivot of the WT tonearms.  I think very highly of the Townshend idea, but it is a bit clumsy in its application. Nevertheless, the principle makes a lot of sense.  You might say it's the only right way to dampen the energy developed at the headshell properly. As to the WT use of silicon damping at the other end of the tonearm, at the pivot, the damping per se may be a fine idea but in the case of the WT, the pivot is not otherwise fixed very tightly in space. It's a golf ball in a trough.  That's my beef.

13blm, I like to find consensus, but maybe in fact we don't agree.  All that goo provides dampening mainly, and probably some friction too, but I think the WT claim for very low friction (but not no friction) may be accurate.  My point was that in order to achieve low friction, the bearing is relatively imprecise in the rigidity with which it anchors the pivot point in space.  But yes, I also suppose there are tonearms with lower friction, especially true unipivots, which unfortunately bring to the table their own set of problems. No free lunches in audio, and no pivoted tonearms with no bearings, either.

10timps, For decades I have listened to the oft repeated claims of Well Tempered philes to the effect that the tonearm has "no bearing".  To this claim, I put the question, "Does the arm pivot?"  The answer is yes it does. Therefore it must have a bearing, by definition.  If you like the WT, that's fine, you have a lot of company. But grammatically speaking, it does not have no bearing. It's a very low friction bearing, but the trade-off is a lack of precision.

As to the high mass/low mass paradigm, I think it's hard to argue from this perspective alone, because most low mass turntables also have some sort of built-in suspension, whereas most high mass turntables tend to be of the unsuspended type. So the debate is 3-way, sort of. I don't care for any of the suspended tables I have owned in comparison to any of the higher mass, unsuspended tables I have owned.