Does anyone know belt drive/direct drive turtables advantages/disadvantages?

Thanks....

Well...you DON"T want belt drive. Direct drive is the way to go.
Direct drive is powered by an electromagnetic motor. You can hold the platter still, without doing any harm. Belt drive, on the other hand, is powered by a big "rubber band" that goes around a motor and the platter. If you hold the platter still with a belt drive, you'll have the motor tugging away on the belt which can wear out the belt real fast not to mention that because it's tugging away at it, you'll have your needle bouncing all over the place.

Thanks Johnny

The difference is staggering... even more so when it comes to scratching. But since we all like trance here, I doubt someone has the nerve to scrath a trance tune. ('How da hell would ya do it then, punk?')

Direct drive decks take less time to start spinning up, and you also get a faster braking speed. On most direct drive decks, this can be tuned to your custom, but it's not too important in comparison with some of the other adjustments you have to make with the decks, such as tonearm adjustment (height, etc), torque, blah blah blah.

On some older belt drive decks, there was occasionally the problem of the platter, or rubber belt, 'slipping', or at least the feeling of it. Needless to say, ya get a much better feeling of reliability with direct drive decks...

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