Early SOTA vs New Something: Conundrum

@rwbadley , Then you are stuck just like me. You have a great turntable that deserves a much better arm and cartridge that it has. If you do what it deserves you will be spending a lot more than a new Technics 1200G. If you get a Kuzma 4 Point 9 tonearm, a Goldring 1042 a new tonearm board you will be spending something like $4500 and that does not include updates to the turntable. I never knew AudioQuest made a cartridge by the way. You sure?

If you go the upgrade route in proper fashion you will have a much better table than the Technics. Would you appreciate the difference? I have no idea. 

@yogiboy , Thanx. I thought that line came from Dirty Harry

rsf507, motors do not have "pace" as long as they are spinning at the right speed. Variations in motor speed cause changes in pitch long before you would notice a change in "pace." We call this wow and flutter.

AC motors are more desirable in turntables as they are self-correcting. As long as the AC they are getting is accurate they will "fight" to maintain the desired speed. 

The motor in the older tables is an AC motor. The Eclipse motor is a three phase AC motor driven by a computer controlled phase converter. It is just as accurate as any DD turntable and it's method of correction is quite different. It corrects the speed slowly as this is much less audible than the usual immediate correction. It also shows you the exact platter (not motor) speed down to one thousandth of an RPM. Along with a more massive platter, the high torque of the motor and vacuum clamping, the pitch stability of the Sota is state of the art. Due to the magnetic thrust bearing and isolating suspension rumble is also at the state of the art. Some people will argue that certain DD tables are quieter. This is false as you are not just interested in the rumble generated by the turntable itself but also the rumble generated by the environment. Only a suspension tuned to a very low frequency can protect you from environmental rumble. If you want to see what environmental rumble looks like just put your stylus down on a stationary record, turn the volume all the way up and keep an eye on your woofers. Have your wife turn the dryer on. Try tripping the furnace. Walk around. Jump up and down in front of the table. All that dancing you see your woofers doing is environmental rumble. It is doppler distorting everything else the woofer is doing. Make sure your rumble filter is off! You can jump around all day long in front of a Sota and the woofers will remain dead still.

@sbank , I need to point out a slight correction on your comment. Not all 9" and 10" arms will fit on a Sota without modifying the plinth cover. As the Sota's arm board is recessed, some arms like the Tri Planar will not fit without cutting away part of the plinth at at the back and right hand side of the tonearm board well. Arms with VTA towers will generally not fit. It is also critical to not that you can not just throw any compatible arm on any Sota tonearm board. In order for the suspension to function correctly at the tuned frequency it has to see a specific mass at that corner of the turntable. The tonearm board mass is varied to accommodate the mass of the tonearm. Some of the older models fine tuned this with lead shot in a well under the tonearm board. The "sweet spot" is however, pretty wide as we are talking about 1-3 Hz.  

@lewm , Where you talking to me, the Bullocks part? I said the Eclipse motor is just as accurate as any direct drive. There are numerous ways to control a DD motor but I am not familiar enough with any of them to comment. I am just going by the spec sheets. The overall accuracy of a belt drive table depends almost entirely on the quality of the belt, machining of the pully and platter along with the cleanliness of the whole. I got that RPM speed and wow and flutter app on my phone and discovered that the wow and flutter of my old Sapphire had risen to almost 0.3%. With a clean up and new belt it dropped right back down to .05%. A modern state of the art table might run 0.03%. Belts wear out. So don't DD motors, it just takes them longer. The thrust bearing gets noisy and wow and flutter specs also deteriorate. Belts are easy to replace.

I own the SOTA because I honestly think it is the best turntable you can buy for the money not to mention that it is very close to the absolute best. I can easily spend five times as much on a turntable but I see nothing I care for until you get to the Dohmann Helix. I am waiting for Dohmann to complete his vacuum platter and dust cover. Until then I will stay with the Sota. Bollocks to you too. 

@sbank , The Cosmos does not have the lead shot well. The tonearm boards are sized to match the tonearm weight. You have to get a new arm board for each tonearm anyway so it makes sense. Sota use to use a standardized arm board so the shot well was critical. How old is your Nova? 

@lewm , Lew, I think you need to read my posts a little more carefully. I said that I am not familiar with the drives of DD turntables. I pay no attention to them because they were so bad, initially at least, that my meager brain can not get up the courage to try a new one. It still thinks they all s-ck. As for bearings, THEY ALL WEAR OUT except the air or magnetic ones. If this generalization is wrong please show me a mechanical bearing that does not wear out. 

The thought of a large oscillating magnetic field anywhere near a phonograph cartridge makes me cringe.  

@karl_desch , It is mutual enlightenment.

@lewm , I only state the obvious Lew. ALL thrust bearings wear in time depending on utilization and load. The very best thrust bearing is no thrust bearing like many Clearaudio tables, Sotas, Airforce tables and the big Kuzma. IMHO the Magnetic thrust bearings are best as there is no compressor to break down and make noise. I have never seen one used in a DD turntable. As the thrust bearing wears wow and flutter specs will deteriorate along with increased rumble. A standard bearing arrangement in a belt drive will do exactly the same thing. My overreaching point is that DD turntables wear out also and it is easier and less expensive to replace a belt. The shaft of a turntable bearing sees virtually no load and with the right tenacious oil very little friction. It will last indefinitely. Those turntables with magnetic thrust bearings will last indefinitely.  

The phonograph cartridge with just a few exceptions is a magnetic device, a very sensitive magnetic device. As a magnetic field decreases with the square of the distance it behooves one to keep other magnetic devices as far away from the cartridge as possible. If you think two to four inches is far enough then direct drive turntables are fine. I prefer the eight inches you get in a belt drive. I might be stuck in the past but I was involved in the HiFi business back in the heyday of direct drive turntables  and they universally sounded inferior. All of us felt that way, it was not just me. One theory to explain this was the proximity of the motor. Whatever. At this point in time direct drive turntables have no advantage over the best belt drives. Most DD's do not have either suspensions or vacuum clamping which in my world puts them at a distinct disadvantage.