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Not to stir up too much controversy but I will soon be engaging in a comparison between these two types of TTs. Now I have to qualify this by pointing out that the two TTs involved are anything but conventional.In the Belt drive corner I have a Voyd "The Voyd" with Helius Cyalene arm. For those not familiar with this TT it is a lightweight platter, spring suspended, THREE motor, belt drive TT. The bearing is pretty conventional (ie. not inverted or exotic like ruby, magnetic or air). What is mostly special about this TT is that the three motors are those wonderful external rotor motors from Papst. They are driven by a pretty big power supply that synthesizes its own frequency. A belt goes around all three motors thus touching the platter at 3 points. The Helius arm is 10" long and has extremely low friction bearings. This is a great arm.
I have had this table for a while now and the dynamics are shocking. It is the most dynamic sounding TT I know of so far, period (with the exception of the Reference version of this same TT). Now I have not heard a lot of the great direct drive TTs (although I have heard the EMT 948 numerous times and while it is very good it is not explosive in dynamics like the Voyd). The downside of the Voyd is that it sometimes sounds a little bit "dirty" and I think this is due to the extra noise imparted by three motors. Vibration isolation from airborne or footfalls is excellent despite the very simple looking suspension. As a result the absolute "see through" factor is perhaps missing (my Benz Micro H2O, which is old, could be to blame as well so I will try a new cart for the comparison).
The direct drive contender will be the Yamaha GT-2000. This was Yamaha's all out assault on TT design (like the Kenwood L07, Denon DP-100, EMT 950, Nakamichi TX-1000, Goldmund Studio etc.). It has a massive plinth (like 30kg), a 6kg oversized platter (better inertia the reason for the oversizing?), a fully adjustable 12" arm (with VTA and azimuth fully and repeatably adjustable), and a huge DC motor with outboard power supply. Also, it has vacuum hold down.
According to information I have found the noise/rumble is better than -85db, which is extremely low. Also, apparently it can get the platter up to the right speed in about 1 second, meaning the motor has a very high torque. The only question will be, how smooth is this torque delivery as this motor is core to the performance of the table.
I am hopeful that it will have similar dynamic delivery to the Voyd but with a cleaner presentation (ie. more transparent) due to the much lower noise. We shall see.
Follow Ups:
I wanted to see if you could substitute upholstery thread for the belt drive.I found that eliminating the belt reduced the noise floor to basically zero. Talk about low level details. I can hear the angular relationship of an instrument to the microphone. If the instrument sways or moves while being played I can clearly hear this detail.
Fun stuff....like being at the recording session.
Perhaps you can have all that awesome prat and a dead silent background all at the same time.
Thank you Mosin for the upholstery thread idea. Not sure who first tried this but damn it really does eliminate motor vibration from the platter in substantial ways.
Cheers!
From seller estateaudiotreasures? Nice catch. Respectfully, I believe that your comparison will be between the Voyd and the Yammie, not belt drive and DD.
Please post your methodology and results, I am very interested. I had done something similar, but at a much lower price point (Technics 1200 mk2 and Musichall MMF9) and without heeding my own advice (below). Thanks for doing this.I humbly suggest, that it is imperative that they both be tested with the same cart./arm/phono -> speakers. Fortunately, in this case, level matching would not be an issue to contend with.
Brad,Have you heard a Pink Triangle Anniversary Vector? This seems to have been partly inspired (though Arthur will probably correct me!) by the dynamic stability of the Voyd three-motor drive, although Arthur has always insisted that three motors cannot satisfactorily drive a belt at the same time. I'm sure you are familiar with the Vector drive, where two passive pulleys are added to the subchassis as well as the motor. I would imagine that this system is rather quieter than the Voyd approach. I had my PT TOO upgraded to Vector in the autumn, and I was shocked by the improvement in solidity and dynamics.
I did hear a Voyd Reference many years ago when I was taking my first steps into serious audio. It had a Cyalene, like yours, on it with an Audio Note IO cartridge, and fed a relatively modest Audio Innovations/Snell system. The sheer presence and intensity of the performance (there was a young Tom Jones, I remember, on the platter) astonished me. Although the full Voyd system was - and still is - well outside my budget, I have been using valve amplification of various kinds ever since. It would be great to be able to hear that Voyd front end in my own system for comparison now!
Alex
"Have you heard a Pink Triangle Anniversary Vector?"No but I have heard the Funk Firm Vector and its a very good sounding turntable and also quite dynamic. I have also heard a Vectored Linn Lp12 with achromat.
If the Yamaha outperforms the Voyd I will be quite impressed with it.
From the info given the torque of the DD motor is about 250mNm. Each of the three Papst motors is higher than this so all together the belt setup has much more torque.On the other hand the Papst motors have a lower torque constant so they will slow down in response to increased load. The feedback loop in the DD gives it an effectively infinite torque constant over long time periods - the short to medium term performance is not so good but is hard to calculate without access to information on the PLL loop constants.
Mark Kelly
Thanks for the info Mark. I will keep you posted on the listening results.
That will be an interesting comparison!I have a feeling that the direct drive turntable will have more immediacy about it, but you'll know soon enough. That said, are those Papst motors the Voyd uses still being made, and what differentiates them from the ones from days long gone? Do you know?
Well, my understanding is that these motors are no longer made by Papst. The table is from about 1985 so they are not exactly new motors.
My money is on the Yamaha, my PX-2 in many ways bests my VPI.
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