Thoughts on moving from a 1200G to Sota Saphire or above

If I was looking at dropping 10 large, would be looking at a phono stage upgrade over a table. 

I am very intrigued in the SOTA as it has not been imported in France for so many years and with mitigated success, and it has so many praised in US forum.

bfoura
There is no doubt that you can improve your turntable by changing the tonearm. I replaced the arm on my Technics 1200G with a Glanz and the improvements were notable. This modification, however, only made sense because: a) the Glanz is an exceptionally superior tonearm; b) my old Ortofon Cadenza Bronze was replaced by a My Sonic Lab Ultra Eminent cartridge, considerably better.

I honestly don’t know if you’ll get real benefits just by changing it tonearm without replacing it with a superior cartridge.

Now the main point: was it worth investing so much in my Technics 1200G? Yes! I would do it again without hesitation!

There is no doubt that you can improve your turntable by changing the tonearm. I replaced the arm on my Technics 1200G with a Glanz and the improvements were notable.

Did you try any Glanz cartridges? @dionisofun

Thanks for reminding about GLANZ, I enjoyed Glanz MF cartridges for a long time, but never tried their tonearms, Glanz is back in business, so let me posts some additional information from my old notes:

Glanz is a brand that has been producing Cartridges and Tonearms masterpieces for many years, and has been adored by audio lovers for a very long time.

Mr. Masataka Hamada who was the developer of “GLANZ” at Mitachi Acoustics, has resurrected “GLANZ” within his own company, Hamada Electric. A legendary brand is reborn! New Glanz tonearms appeared in the market recently. The head office is located in Numazu City, Shizuoka, JAPAN.

Glanz tonearms are manufactured by Hamada Electric and exported by Sibatech Inc.

Mitachi Acoustics for whom Mr. Hamada developed various analog products and was founded in 1951 under the brand name Glanz and closed in 2003. In 1980 Hamada-San established Hamada Electric and secured the Glanz brand license from the Mitachi family in 2008.

Quote from the advertising literature:

"Beyond time Glanz’s legend has been revived. Many long-established audio manufacturers have vanished since analog audio entered its glacial epoch with the advent of digital. Against this tide Glanz issued products such as tone arms and phono cartridges favored by audiophiles to survive with its ingenious technology. The birth of an ultimate tone arm—the Glanz — proves the real advantage of analog audio and talks of its regeneration."

"After engaging in the development of Mitachi Onkyo, I spent many years doing jobs such as repairing Ortofon’s SPU series cartridges. During this period, I learned a great deal from the audio fans, who talked about their dissatisfaction, and made suggestions concerning the various tonearms that were being sold around the world. Armed with this information, THE GLANZ tonearm was designed and manufactured to faithfully reproduce “sound”. My policy is to pursue “original pure sound”. Our company’s products are aiming for the top. “Original pure sound” is the pinnacle! The sound produced by the current electronics industry is far removed from “original pure sound”, but when I air my opinion about this, I am considered ‘eccentric’! I am therefore keen to get to know other people who agree, even a little bit, with my ideas." - Hamada-San (Glanz).


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It’s time to spread the light (AGAIN) on some of the very best Moving Flux cartridges made by Mitachi Corporation in Japan. This cartridge is the Glanz MFG-61 with Boron Cantilever and special design "PH" stylus tip. This is not a typical vintage MM/MI or MC, the patent for unique Moving Flux technology belongs to Mr Tsugikuma Minamizono (Japan). Mitachi Corporation made some very nice MF cartridges in the 70s/80s for US/Canadian brand Astatic, for French Jamo and for Italian Azzurra. But for the domestic Japanese brand, technical engineers of Mitachi Corporation designed the ultimate Moving Flux model in 1982. The Glanz MFG-61 is stand alone cartridge, the most prestige model among Glanz MF cartridges, employs BORON cantilever in order to achieve maximum efficiency at the electro-magnetic mechanism, where characterized most advanced feature of MF cartridge, when the energy is converted from mechanical vibration system to electric vibration system. BORON is considered as an ideal material of cantilever in its character that transmits sound as fast as 7 times than Aluminum, due to its large young rate and small specific gravity. With use of Boron cantilever, the signal picked up from disc to specially designed PH stylus tip is faithfully transferred to the conversion system, and hi-fidelity sound reproduced. The rest of the MF cartridges made by Mitachi for other brands do not have such cantilever and diamond. This fact makes my Glanz MFG-61 highly collectible. This is the best sounding Moving Flux cartridge. Find one in my virtual system.

I have been dealing with TT upgradis for may years I had a G that I put a Triplanar top 10" model on and yes it is better I didn't like the anti skate on the TP so I sold it went to a high end belt drive table and it is just different the DD table seems to me to have better timing or PRAT as they say any way I now have the SL1200GAE and the SL1210GAE I am getting ready to move my Thales Simplicity II tonearm onto the 1210GAE to see what improvements that brings, I have always liked linear tracking arms best...stay tuned I guess but I have it will be my end all table