A new TT from Steve Dobbins,"The Beat." ???

Lew,

Do you know or can you say here just how is the bearing isolated from the motor?

very good question.

Steve did not explain that to me (or if he did it went over my head).

obviously Steve has made plinths for dozens of (Technics SP-10) Mk3's and experimented with various ways to optimize them. in his efforts he ran into a limitation of the Mk3 design, which was the noise which was transferred to the platter thru the bearing which is part of the motor. he determined that isolating the bearing was a key to improving that aspect of the performance.

my Rockport solves this problem with an air bearing.

i can say The Beat is a little quieter than the already 'quiet' Mk3.

Yes, some isolation could be achieved by air bearing as in the Rockport or by magnetics, as in the Clearaudio monstrosity. I don't think Steve used either of those methods. So it's a fun thought experiment to figure out how it might be done otherwise. The simplest thing would be to isolate the bearing from the motor coils as well as possible. Then the magnet/stator could still be attached to the platter, as in the Mk3. No part of the motor physically touches the platter/ bearing in this scheme, so unless there is induced vibration in the platter via the magnet/coil interaction, the goal is brought nearer. With a Mk3, you would have to deconstruct the bearing/coil assembly to get there, which is not easy to contemplate in such an expensive and rare piece of gear. But my goodness, the Mk3 is freakin quiet already.

From what I read, I believe what Mike is trying to say is that the stator in the motor is decoupled from the bearing which is physically possible. And I was just thinking about such thing couple weeks ago while having the mental experiment of decoupling the DD motor from the platter and bearing but Dobbins beat me to it, pun intended.

After all a DD motor is nothing but a series of coils lay out in a circle that we call a stator and right above is a circular magnet that we call a rotor that's attached to the bearing shaft. In a conventional DD motors, typically, the stator is mounted to the same surface that houses the bearing. It is totally possible that the stator can be mounted separately or decoupled from the bearing. This can address the problem the common complaint about DD table that back torque force vibrating the bearing and plinth and therefore tonearm. So yes, I believe to be quieter than the Mk3 can be achieved. Just happy to see people are putting new ideas into the direct-drive genre. I applaud that!

I agree with Lewm that the Clearaudio Statement is a rather inelegant design.

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another related issue when looking at the Mk3 is that the platter is part of the motor assembly. so there is no choice if a better platter is desired. the Mk3 does not have a 'problematic platter'; but just like the bearing issue there is room for improvement.

i can sure hear what Steve's new platter has done for the Garrard, and there is related design in the platter of The Beat.

No doubt the platter and mat have a huge effect on the sound of any tt. This is a universal issue, not just restricted to dd tts. Problem for me is that I don't know what is "the best". In general, high mass seems like a good thing, but after that there is a lot of room for speculation. I believe that high mass is less critical for dd tts than for belt-drive types. I guess if one had the cojones to try it, one could unbolt the magnet from the Mk3 platter and attach it to a platter of one's own design and thereby fit the new platter to the Mk3. A company like TT Weights could make such a platter (and of course Steve Dobbins can make a fab one).