Why will no other turntable beat the EMT 927?

Always a lot of discussion about speed and speed control. I'm no expert and do not claim to be an authority here. I'm just not convinced that the differences in how these turntables sound is due largely to speed control. I believe that the majority of our hifi turntables have speed and speed control nailed down very well. The key is having the right tools to accurately dial in the correct speed, but our tt's have the motors and control circuits to hold speed as required. We have discussed this in other forums. Most tables are capable to hold speed within +/-0.05%. This is as good as the master reel to reel tapes that the records were made from.
I believe the majority of the sound differences can be attributed to both isolation of the record and stylus and the dampening or sinking of the vibrations generated by the stylus (internal born) as well as external vibrations (feed back from the speaker output). The platter must be acoustically black. ie. no response to the stylus vibrations can be allowed to be fed back to the cartridge. The platter bearing, tonearm bearing and tonearm mount must be acoustically black. Any reflections back to the cartridge is going to muddy the sound, smear images and reduce detail. Looking at pictures of the EMT turntable convinces me that its massive chassis, platter and bearing probably makes this tt incomparable among tt's to asorbing vibrations and eliminating reflections back to the cartridge.
I don't think drive type matters that much either as long as vibrations are isolated and absorbed. Some of the advatages of rim drive might simply be the rim pulley sinking vibrations from the platter. Belts have their own way of isolating vibrations. I think DD is the biggest challenge for isolation and sinking of vibrations. These are just opinions on my part and I would like Halcro and Thucan to weigh in with their much more vast experience.

Don't worry about inertia. Just add the cartridge effective mass to the tonearm's effective mass and use the cartridge compliance to calculate the system natural frequency. As long as it is around 10Hz, it's fine.

Raul and Lewm are both correct. The longer 12 inch arm can reduce tracking error but adds new design challenges by being longer. And as Lewm states, if the setup of the 12 inch arm is off a bit, the tracking error becomes worse than a 9 inch arm. And the articles that I read showed the tracking error is worse for the 12 inch arm vs. the 9 inch for the same amount of mis-setting. Effective mass is actually the inertia of the tonearm and inertia is mass times the radius squared plus 1/3 the length squared. So the 12 inch arm has to have a higher effective mass. The arm tube rigidity to avoid resonance response becomes a bigger challenge too for the longer arm. It is a mechanical engineering problem that was solved decades ago. The 9 inch arm, in general, provides the optimum solution for all conditions. Sure, new materials can justify a revisit of old ideas. Just watch out for new designs where the hype outweighs the engineering.

Raul, I'm an engineer and it is easy to get overwhelmed when considering all of the design issues and technical hurdles involved with music reproduction and begin to think that making any music at all is near impossible. Step back a moment and consider sound reproduction as an art more than an engineering problem. How? Well, the music begins and ends with coils. Transformers is a good name for them because they transform the live music into electrical signals and then back into live music. The process starts with the coils in the microphones and transducers and goes to the coils in the cutting stylus. The vinyl disc is simply a mechanical record of the signals generated by the coils. (The master tapes are a record of the signals from the tape head coils). The phono cartridge coils reproduce these signals from the cutting stylus coils and then goes through the coils in the preamp/amp and finally to the speaker coils. In the whole sound reproduction chain nothing is more important than these coils. Some are mass produced on automated equipment and some are wound by the hands of master craftsman. Many people will tell you that some of the most esoteric gear rely on the art of the master craftsmen winding these coils- large or small. I'm not a EE but I believe the basic audio circuits have been around for decades. The application of new components such as wiring, capacitors, resistors, isolation, etc. make for the modern improvements in audio amplifiers. Circuitry is not nearly as interesting as the design and construction of the coils of wire in the stereo chain. I believe, Raul that it goes back to the basics- the theme that I see oft in your posts- purity of signal through top notch subcomponents, isolation and dampening and a rock solid time base; ie. stable platter speed. Just offering a different perspective here.

I should have summarized better. What I am saying is that Hifi is much more than a collection of circuit boards populated with components and boxes sitting on a shelf. There is still art and craftsmanship involved in every step of the sound reproduction chain. That will never change and there will always be a segment of the population that will seek that special pleasure out. The EMT 927 and other turntables like it were built by adventurers willing to make the sacrifices and effort: little different from those that would climb Mt. Everest.

So no one liked my magic coils story? Hmm. A lot of talk going nowhere here. Let me say this: there are hobbyists and there are the real pros and innovators. The ultimate are those who have not just designed and built amplifiers and speakers but have gotten to the level of detail of winding their own transformers for amplifiers, speakers, microphones, phono cartridges, or motors even. Restoration is a labor of love and requires great skill and knowledge- don't get me wrong. I had a buddy in the 80s that was very talented at restoring amplifiers and preamps. He looked for old tube amps to restore that were known to have good quality, good sounding transformers. Maybe that's were I get my coils kick; but even he didn't try to wind transformers himself. Anyway, I want to weigh in here too. I agree that it's easy to grow accustomed to colorations in our sound systems. I get to hear acoustic presentations at our nearby University and they almost sound as good as my stereo. :) I like Blues music but I don't like the overpowering, way overdone bass at live presentations. I definitely do not want to duplicate that at home. I like live orchestra but my system at home cannot duplicate a music hall. So I have to live with that; but I still enjoy classical music at home.
I pretty much put my soldering iron away in the mid-90s and moved away from modifying to acquiring more "high end" equipment. I think I had to spend a lot of money to get beyond the sound of my modified gear. Part of me wants to believe that more $$=more better sound, but my experience over the years has proven otherwise. I'm brainwashed by the great marketing machine like everyone else. If I had the means, I would spend well into the 6 digits on my stereo to both satisfy my ego and get to the ultimate audio experience. As it is, I have learned to do more with what I have to maximize the audio experience. I think most of us as music lovers and hobbyists try to do that. I miss the stereo salons of the 70s-90s. So few around these days. It was always fun to hear the latest gear and walk away smirking at the bogus claims of some salesmen.

Finding neutrality is like finding the mythical Unicorn. I mean it is more an abstract concept than something real. For example, just listening to live music and moving around the room, concert hall or even outside venue the sound changes. Suppose you could get your favorite singer to stand in your listening room and belt out a tune. It isn't going to be the same thing as the record because the artist's studio sound is completely different from your room. Afterall, our hifi's are supposed to recreate the ambience of the recording. So now suppose you get to stand in the studio while your favorite singer performs. The recording engineer is in an isolated chamber hearing the performance through some studio monitors. (That's how I perceive it; but I have never been to a studio). How much comparison does the recording engineer compare the live voice to his mix down? What if they adjust timber of the singers voice a bit. So at best, neutrality is a comparison between systems or components and becomes a subjective judgment like everything else.

The mechanical engineering principles and knowledge to build turntables have been around for more than a century. The difference is these guys in the 50s and 60s designed turntables with slide rules and look up tables instead of CAE/CAD processes. The moon rockets were designed with slide rules and look up tables too. Engineering capability and knowledge isn't the issue. Economics is the issue. These designers had economic motivation in the 50s and 60s to build these robust behemoth turntables. They had a market for them- maybe not big but many times bigger than the market for an ultimate turntable today. Tooling costs, even for the special motors was amortized over some volume production and/or the components carried over to other models as well to defray costs. Casting tooling and mold tools today would be cost prohibitive even to build a high dollar turntable. So machined parts become the only option which still will be extremly costly. So the knowledge may exist; but not the will- just like the moon rockets.