Oh yeah, its belt driven. But you have to understand, the motor isnt spinning a 12 inch wheel of steel, its just spinning that light 7 inch platter. I've never heard of any problems with the motor. If you look at the denon fanatic forum, those guys are into all that weird...turntabilsm stuff, and they must beat the hell out of those platters, but they say theyve never had a problem. Those players are pretty solid as far as mechanics goes, i think. The only thing you have to watch out for is mp3 playback on the 3000, some people have problems with that(skipping).
Edit:i should add that i personally have had no problems with this mp3 playback skipping thing so far, and out of the cases ive heard of some people say its something to do with copy protection or something...

Ya the denon's are very nice platter cd players.

the platters are belt driven and I've never had a problem with mine... I own the 3000's and been using them out at least once a week in a club and have had no problem with the belts.... even when the hip hop dj's play around with them...

THe platter is alot smaller and weighs alot less than a 1200 platter, thus the belt drive is fine.
Plus it cuts down on costs....
2 S3000s should cost @ most $1000.00.

I've never had a problem w/ the mp3 playback yet, but I only really use mp3's to add vocals over tracks (that way I carry only 2 CDs full of acapellas! )

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SINsation Sound

i have the 5000's but i also had the 3000's and there spot on, really good solid unit. Theres also a rubber band modification trick that can be done to give more torque, i havent done it as i dont scratch that much.