22 Years after purchasing my first turntable, it continues to amaze me how they all exhibit such major sound differences. It seems that every aspect of a turntable’s design affects performance to a remarkable extent.

The motor and drive mechanism is possibly the most important aspect, contributing up to around 30% of overall performance. At first this may seem an unexpected statement and so by way of explanation, it is worth considering the following.

The purpose of a deck is to rotate the record at a precise speed in relation to the cartridge needle. No other motion must be present except the stylus movement through the groove. Any other motion will upset the correct movement of the stylus in the groove by adding to it or subtracting from it. The outcome is then amplified around 8000 times by the time it gets to the speakers.

To achieve this theoretical ideal, the factors to overcome in order of priority are: -

Motor vibration
Movement and resonances in the deck and arm structure caused by:
1. Stylus movement
2. Ground Bourne vibration, mainly due to the speakers mechanical connection to the room.
3. Airborne vibration from the speaker acoustic output.
4. Vibration caused by the platter / spindle rotation in the main bearing
5. Vibration or movement of the arm bearings.

There are two aspects to controlling vibration – the first is to minimize the source and the second is to dissipate the energy involved with as little motion as possible. This seems simple at face value but becomes extraordinarily difficult when one realizes that the slightest vibration anywhere in the deck is going to be amplified 8000 times by the time it gets to the speakers.

To reduce motor vibration at source there are 2 approaches:

To produce a perfect, electronically synthesised sine wave to drive an AC motor.
To produce a perfectly regulated, load compensating DC current to drive a DC motor.

To be fair there are pros and cons to both methods. AC and DC solutions are both highly demanding and much depends on the quality of the motor.

Origin Live chose to use DC motors, not so much based on theoretical arguments but on findings that DC motors generally ran more smoothly than the AC motors available – this is eliminating vibration at source rather than controlling it.

There is an argument that, if a deck is completely inert, using high mass platters and carefully selected plinth materials, there should be minimal influence from motor vibration. It is surprising therefore that the DC motor kits we supply, have an astonishing influence on such decks, some of which use platters in the 30kg (66lb) range. Quite how the vibration of a motor can upset such a mass takes some thinking about.