Technics or Kuzma turntable.

I have a very early SP-10 (mark I)- not the desired motor, heavy platter or speed control) that I have owned since 1973 and had Bill Thalmann restore it. I also have a Kuzma XL with Airline arm, which was the big daddy of the line originally. Not a fair comparison in the sense that my SP-10 is not in the league of the mk II, let alone the mk iii or the new model, but I will tell you I’ve had that table for what? almost 50 years and it still sounds great. Ditto the big Kuzma, which is a commitment, partly because it requires more measures to isolate effectively given its mass. I can tell you Franc Kuzma is a very good guy. I’ve had overnight turnaround on some stuff from Slovenia! Crazy (that was when I lived in NY so it was an easier flight than to Austin, TX where I live now). And if you are in the States, Scot Markwell is a pleasure to deal with and actually knows what he is talking about.
You should try and audition the tables. I think the sound of a turntable is hard to discern without a controlled comparison involving no other variables. Pretty tough to do but possible if you are in a place that is audio-heavy. Austin is a backwater compared to NY, but NY isn’t what it was during the ’80s for hi-fi. Depending on where you have to travel to hear these, it might be worth a round trip ticket, I dunno. (Oh, flying sucks right now, sorry, but I'd travel to hear something if I knew in advance that the necessary arrangements were made to set up a meaningful comparison). 

Oh, flying sucks right now,

It sure does! But car rental isn't a thing right now either- flying is a lot cheaper if it goes well. If you fly you stand a good chance of having luggage going missing, missing a connecting flight and spending hours on the phone trying to get the mess sorted out while staying someplace you didn't plan on, and then having to make a claim against the airline(s) down the road, and somehow hoping they'll reimburse you for the expenses caused by their current ineptitude.

My recent trip on the Colorado Trail was bookended by airline horror...

My vote is for the Technics but personally I would wait until I could hear the tables in question before I bought anything.  Otherwise I would never know what I was missing, if anything.

@dover, in my head? Do you mean my imagination? That is pretty insulting dover. Turns out I just purchased a new turntable and listened to all the Kuzma's except the XL and the S. The Ref 2 is a better sounding turntable than the stock R. Would an isolation platform change that evaluation? I would think so but I have no idea how much. I think you put way to much stock in motors. They are either quiet and accurate or not.
The Drives in both the R and Ref 2 are more than adequate and neither is affecting the sound of either turntable. The Chassis however is a different story. The Chassis will determine how much pollution will get to the cartridge and that is major. You are entitled not to think so and that is your problem. Mass is not enough to protect a turntable. I the whart will testify to that as he put his XL on a MinusK platform. Frank Kuzma is a very interesting guy. It seems he wants to satisfy everyone. So, he makes one of everything. He has his moments of genius as exemplified by the 4 Points but then he goes and makes a unipivot arm. Then, for the tangential crowd he makes the air line. The Stabi R is a turntable for those who want to use multiple tonearms. If you were looking for a table that could take 4 arms in that price range and could afford an isolation platform to go with it along with a dust cover that could cover the whole show then it could be the perfect table for the job.

In my case it came down to the Stabi M vs the Sota Cosmos Eclipse Vacuum. I prefer vacuum clamping, am comfortable dealing with Sota, and there is no competition regarding  price. 

I can't help it dover if you think I have a vivid imagination. Perhaps if i do another gummy it will go away....or get worse.

Dover is unable to express an opinion of his own without throwing in a gratuitous insult along with it. The OP has opened up a pre-existing can of worms. The vinyl world is divided into those who advocate direct drive turntables and those who prefer belt drive turntables. The better those two drive types get, the more they sound the same. I would advise the OP to make up his own mind by going to whatever lengths it takes to have a listen to the respective turntables. Then he may be able to decide for himself. But before you do anything please discount the other BS that Mijostyn cannot resist repeating every time he comments on a direct drive turntable, the bit about the “pulsating magnetic field”.Designers of direct drive turntables know full well about the potential for EMI sourced noise. They are not idiots. The tables of best quality are well shielded against such interference. Just as some of the very best belt drive turntables have taken into account the phenomena of belt creep and belt slippage, and the other speed anomalies that can plague a belt drive turntable.I will freely admit that I am in the high quality direct drive camp, but if I were to purchase a belt drive turntable, at a reasonable cost to me, it would most likely be a Kuzma. I think those are very intelligently designed. In short, if you want to close your eyes and choose one, you really cannot go wrong with these two.