Vintage Denon Direct Drive Turntable

I agree with most of what you say. How did you or do you rank the best idler tt you've heard vs the best DD, and what do you think are the qualitative differences? In any case, I am having a lot of fun with vintage TTs these days. That in itself is ample justification for pursuing their perfection.

Dear Lewm: The last time ( and the best ) I heard a Garrad 301/401 was at Louis place along the Triplanar/XV-1, as you can see a first rate analog rig and the speaker/electronics/room just " according " with.

How do you think that system " sounds "?, yes you are right: it sounds really good. Well, I heard ( other than in my system ) DD TT that performs really good ( at least same level. ) in different really good audio systems and I never heard a Garrad on my system. You ask " how do you rank....", well I can't.
In almost all those different ( top ones and with different cartridges and phono stages. ) systems either DD/BD/Idler performs very well.
Right now in my system I can't say for sure if I prefer DD over BD: overall I can't see an absolute winner yet!, a hard and complex " call " for say the least. It is ( at least for me ) very dificult to " aisle " the TT performance it self to rank a drive system per-se.

Today I'm a firm advocate ( if we can ) to have and enjoy all those TT drive systems.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Good answer. I don't really believe there is any one "best" drive system either. Perhaps one may be more cost-effective than another, but that's about it. (Up to say $3000, I think you can beat out most BDs with any of several DDs or idler set-ups. Of course, one reason for that is that I am comparing a brand new BD to tts that one can buy used for quite a discount off their long-ago cost.) I think we are lucky to have different "flavors" of vinyl reproduction with all these different modes for making the platter rotate.

Dear Lewm: Yes, all of us are so lucky about!

regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

I sourced a nice big slab of slate for just £30 on the weekend from a reclamation yard, it's 2 inches thick and the plan is to cut in in half and double it up, so it will end up being 4 inches deep which is the same depth as the DK300. The upper & lower layers will have different cut-out to refect the shape of the motor unit, with the lower (base) layer having a larger surface area for greater flexibility fo locating footers.

This plinth is going to be monsterously heavy, I would imagine total weight with DP80 motor unit will approach 100kg. I am intending to use Clearlight RDC cones and combi-bases as footers, but I am wondering what to use between the two layers of slate (if anything at all) if the two layers dont sit absolutely flush with one-another. Does anyone have any ideas as regards the best approach, i.e. a thin layer of compliant damping compound to isolate or something solid like small spikes to tightly couple the two layers?