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I was involved many years ago (1985), in the design and manufacture of a 'low mass' turntable called the Voyd. This suspended design used 3 papst external rotor synchronous motors to drive a very light acrylic (and later polycarbonate) platter. The idea was to have something under the disc which would conduct away and dissipate energy from the vinyl to where it was less harmful. Applying the power of the motors from 3 points also allowed the benefits of a proper low resonance suspension to be heard without the drag caused by the stylus forcing the platter to try to move towards and away from a single driving motor in time with the music. (a problem with almost all other suspended s/chassis decks.) The chassis and arm mounting were also light but very rigid. The effective mass of the platter was very high. The bass performance possible from this deck (particularly in its most extreme iteration) was as good as anything I've heard. It was not supplemented by the usual boom and colouration I associate with typical high mass designs. There is definitely merit in this approach if implemented accurately. The main downsides were that it would have had to be modified to accomodate arms weighing much more than 1.5 Kg although there weren't many around at the time and the moving mass of a linear tracking arm would not have been helpful without significant modification to the suspension design. This multiple drive design pre-dated efforts by VPI and Clear audio by several years. It's an alternative approach to your original proposition though. Did you ever encounter one?

best regards,
Guy

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