spin sound
The huge cast aluminium pulley on the motor really echoes out the noise. Also because of the expanding pulley, the belt is never a good firm fit on the pulley, so it slips a bit which adds noise too. If there is any wear on the belt, especially cracking or chipping of the inner surfaces, it adds to noise.
The later versions, like the South African ones I owned, changed to a plastic expanding pulley. It was much quieter when new, but tended to wear out where the belt rubbed on it, creating its own noise over time.
I have had both the black fronted SA ones like the Indesit 2527 in Docker's post above, and Silver faced ones badged Lemair WD800 and Indesit WD800. The differences were slight, mainly the spin pulley and also the switches had different functions. There was a "snowflake" button which replaced the D (dry) button - it was for "no heater" in the wash cycle. You would select dry just by setting the dry timer. If you set the dry timer to off, it wouldn't dry.
There was no 800 button, all regular spins were at 800rpm. You selected a delicate cycle on the timer to get the slower (alternating) spin.
The 4 buttons were, from vague memory, snowflake (no heater in wash); water saver (uses the lower water level for rinses as well as wash); no spin; and on/off.
Chris.