Keep or replace Oracle Delphi

New is always fun.

1300G will be a set and forget.

Skip the Hana-way better cart in every way and not much more

Audio-Technica AT-ART7 cartridge

 NOS 1st gen ART7. Specs/performance of a super cart without the price. As long as you have 65-70db gain in your phono you're good to go.

An Oracle is an iconic table. I would never choose a current generation Technics over it. The Eminent Technology is a fiddly arm, but it also is a fine piece of kit if you are willing to spend time setting it up. 

If the Oracle has been refreshed, I would keep it. If it has not, then that is a great starting point. Changing an arm is fine, and Origin Live makes a nice arm. I use the Agile on my SOTA Cosmos and am quite happy with it. If I was changing cartridges I would think the Umami is a fine choice. I also would explore the Audio Technica ART 9 and ART 20. 

Personally, I would even keep the ET II arm and put one of those cartridges on it. 

Not only was I an Oracle dealer for many years, I've owned many of their products. 

I currently use a Delphi MKIV with a Zeta/Van den Hul arm, Zu Audio/Denon DL-103 cartridge as one of my reference rigs.  Not much touches it.

You didn't say what version your Delphi was?  Oracle can upgrade that table to current specs (or somewhere in between).  I'd pursue that avenue for sure.

Agree that the ET arm is a pain in the ass, but set up right it's pretty damn good.

If you want to change arms, I just installed an Audiomods Series Six on a Delphi MKV for a friend and it is indeed VERY nice.  I have a Series Five on another table and absolutely LOVE this company!  Jeff's a GREAT guy.

I have more questions before leaping ahead w advice…

what is the version of Oracle ? Ditto on ET and pump and are you just done w fiddling ? Agree it is quite the arm when wrung out and maintained… but… I get pining away for pivoted simplicity,,,

what is the phono pre ?

what else is downstream ?….

The Oracle Delphi was for years the reference table of hi-fi retailer and renown turntable set-up man Brooks Berdan (in the 90’s Bill Johnson flew Brooks out from California to the Audio Research factory in Minnesota to set up the table in the company’s listening room. Bill also had Brooks drive out to his winter home in Indian Wells California to set up his personal table). Brooks gained notoriety for identifying a flaw in the design of that excellent table---the moving mass of the floating sub-chassis was inherently imbalanced, and coming up with a cure for that flaw: Brooks attached a specific weight of stainless steel (in the form of a round block) to the underside of the acrylic at the precise location needed to make the sub-chassis behave perfectly pistonically (bounce up and down in the vertical plane). Oracle eventually incorporated the weight into the table’s design themselves. Brooks sold and installed a great number of Eminent Technology linear tracking arms on that table, a great combo.

When VPI introduced the HW-19 Brooks began selling that table as a partner for the ET arm, finding the HW-19 to provide a more stable platform for the relatively high horizontal moving mass  of the ET. The  HW-19’s suspension was stiffer than that of the Delphi, and its floating sub-chassis of higher mass than that of the Oracle, both better for the ET arm.

When VPI introduced the even higher mass TNT table, it became Brooks’ first choice for use with the ET arm. It remains a great choice, and plenty of used TNT’s (in all it’s many iterations. My favorite is the MK.5) are available on the used market. He also used both VPI tables as the platform for his personal favorite arm, the Graham Engineering Phantom.

I myself use the VPI Aries as the table for use with the Trans-Fi linear tracking arm. The Aries is of lower mass than the TNT (about the same as that of the HW-19, which I also own), but then the Trans-FI arm has much lower horizontal moving mass than does the ET arm.

I second the recommendation by @mofimadness of the Zeta arm. It is a forgotten classic, very similar in design and build to the Kuzma Stogi. The Zeta is a little higher in moving mass than most current designs, great for use with lower compliance cartridges.