No, not at all. I dislike overpriced, underperforming turntables. Most of them are newer belt-drive decks.

There are many amazing belt-drive turntables and one of my two reference decks is a golden-age, end-game Luxman PD-350 (ie Micro Seiki) belt-drive turntable. Yes, the other is a direct-drive machine, but I wouldn’t use or own the PD-350 if I didn’t like it, trust me on this!

That being said, the Luxman PD-350 isn’t your regular belt-drive turntable and this is important. Good belt-drive decks are excellent, but many are ordinary and far surpassed by direct-drive machines. Far too many people have spent far too long reading about hi-fi rather than experiencing it and as a result, have no clue about what’s actually good.

I really enjoy the simplicity and honesty of the lower and older Rega Planar machines. I love decks like the PL-514, SL-23 and KD-2055, just to name a few. What I don’t like is bad turntables, no matter how their platters are driven. This especially extends to overpriced underperformers and unfortunately, most of those are belt-driven, many from the famous brands you’d be familiar with…