The issue is you need a powerful drive. Direct drive easily has the best speed stability (Technics makes the most speed stable machines in the world and their drives are pretty powerful). A powerful idler drive can easily dust a weak direct drive or belt drive- a powerful belt drive can easily dust a weak idler drive or weak direct drive.
This is why you see a following around certain vintage turntables- all of them have powerful drives- the Technics SP10, the Garrard 301, Empire, Lenco and the Thorens TD124.
The problems with the vintage machines is usually a poor plinth design which does not take into account the effect vibration can have on the sound of the machine, and crude tonearm performance (solved by installing a modern arm). If the designer has done their homework, the plinth (and platter) of the ’table will be quite dead.
Another serious variable is the platter pad- it can color the sound since there is resonance in the LP itself when the stylus tracks it. If this is going on the LP can ’talk back’ to the cartridge. A good platter pad can make all the difference and this is a left out variable in the discussion of which drive is better!! A good platter pad will simultaneously damp the platter and silence the vibration in the LP; this has to be done with a platter pad that has the same hardness (durometer) as the vinyl. In that way energy from the LP is absorbed and not reflected back the the LP. If this is all correct, it will be very hard to hear the stylus tracking the groove with the volume off.
None of the vintage machines had anything other than a joke for a platter pad. For that matter most modern platter pads are no better. IMO this is the least understood aspect of LP playback.
