Belt Drive Turntable Next to a Direct Drive.

0:00 Differences between belt drive and direct

Alright folks, in this video I've got a belt drive turntable, which is this guy here. It's from American Audio. It's known as the TT Record next to a direct drive turntable. This is from a company called CAM and it's known as the DDX5000 direct drive turntable. What I'm going to try and do in this particular video is show you the differences between belt drive and direct drive. Now first of all, very importantly, this guy here, it's known as a TT Record. This is an MP3 recorder, basic normal box standard vinyl turntable. You can put your vinyl on there, you can plug your USB thumb drive in there and basically just press a button and you can record your vinyl. So literally if you've got a track that's five minutes long, within a few minutes after that you can be playing that on a CDJ turntable. The difference being this guy you can't record on but this is direct drive.

1:29 Belt drive

And this one here is belt drive. So, first look, you know, you couldn't really tell which one was direct drive or which one was belt drive. What I'm going to do now is actually take the slip mats off the turntables. Now let's have a look. Okay, that one's got two holes on the platter, that one's got four. This area's the platter, just to let you know. Exactly the same here, this one's the platter. Right, let's take off the platter first of all on the direct drive. Right, what have we got there? We've got a magnet, and here we've got an area where the magnet sits. Here is the spindle. Now basically what happens is that area inside will turn inside here. Now this is the actual motor.

3:25 In essence, they're both turntables

The reason it's called a direct drive turntable is because there is a direct drive, believe it or not, from this area Let's have a look at the belt drive. Now what I need to do here is just put my finger in this area and move this band, and then we can lift this off. Now this is the underside of the actual belt drive and I've got my finger here on the belt. That's why it's called a belt drive because you've got that belt there. Now we still have a motor on this guy but we don't have it in the centre position here. This is still the spindle. This can just move freely. But this area here is where the actual motor is housed, underneath here.

Now this motor is not dissimilar to the motor you'd find in that little fan I was on about. Right, I'll put this back. Hold on a second. OK, what are the pros and cons about, say, this guy as opposed to this guy? Well first of all, direct drive, what you tend to find generally is direct drive motors are a lot stronger and also what happens is when you press play...

There's more of a quicker response with the actual platter moving, as opposed to, again generally this is, an actual belt drive particular turntable where when you press play there's a tiny, tiny delay. Now I must emphasise that this guy here, yes you can DJ on it, yes you can change the pitch, you can increase and decrease the actual speed, but this particular turntable has been made Ideally for one purpose, and that is to record your vinyl. As opposed to this guy here, which is, you know, more for turntablists, for proper DJ mixers, etc. So, in essence, they're both turntables. They will both do exactly the same thing, but the motor on this is not as strong as the motor on this guy. And also what you tend to find with the actual belt drive turntables, after a while the belt here

It'll start to slacken a little bit and what you'll find is over a period of time there won't be as good a response when you're moving the pitch. Now don't panic, it's not going to happen in about six months. It will take quite a few years but as opposed to something like this you'll always get a good response from the actual turntable or should I say the direct drive motor. So there you go, a quick insight there. There's this guy here from American Audio. Now bearing in mind, don't forget... This is ideally meant for recording your vinyl onto a little thumb drive. And this guy here, it's the Cam DDX5000 and this is a direct drive turntable. Practice and enjoy.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.