$7K to spend on new turntable + arm

Well said, Jmcgrogan2!

BPowers, I have read most of the posts here, and I see no recommendation for the Feickert turntable that you say is your current "favorite" in the race. Why and how did you come up with that idea? You would be taking a flyer on an unknown quantity that might be difficult to re-sell.

I don't own any of the tables under consideration and have never heard most of them, but based on my ideas of what constitutes good turntable design, I would cast my vote with Basis. And the Vector 4 arm is an excellent design. This is if you want to stay with belt drive. Otherwise, the Brinkmann Bardo direct drive, which could also be coupled with the Vector tonearm or any of several others, might knock your socks off, if you wear socks.

Stringgreen: "The VPI arm is not at all unstable unless you set it up improperly."

I recently purchased a VPI Classic II.
I've heard the term "Unipivot Arm" many times but
had never understood its meaning until the purchase.
A unipivot arm is balanced on the point of a small nail.
It is free to wobble to-and-fro and moves back and forth
(think of a rowboat on a wavy pond) until you set it in
the record groove.

It seems to seat itself well and is not producing distorted
sound so I'm satisfied it is working but I'm sure its
geometry is (slightly) different on every play.

Is this unstable? Hmmmmm...

I will answer for Stringreen: A unipivot is less "stable" than a gimbal bearing or linear tracking tonearm with respect to azimuth. True, the action of the stylus tracing the groove can cause the azimuth to "creep" during play. However, none of the modern unipivots are without some mechanism or another to prevent or ameliorate that problem. I don't think your earlier statement that the "VPI tonearm" is "unstable" is quite fair, if this is what you were thinking about, because it infers that there is some unique problem with the VPI. The VPI tonearm is a unipivot and therefore it has to deal with that issue, just like any other unipivot. However, some of the finest tonearms ever made are in fact unipivots. All tonearm designs are compromised in one way or another.

Thanks Lewn, but just to clarify myself....I just think it is unjust for people to denigrate VPI or anyone without just cause. All you say is true about unipivots, however, I really never rock it. I shove it to the beginning of my LP, and use the cuing device to lower it. It is rock stable when playing a record. I raise it with the cuing device and move it to its rest. All arms, turntables, amps, cables et al have their own sound....one can like it or not. If one is better than another, we tend to respond to that particular sound. I have had many arms...they all sound different..some do their job better, some worse, but VPI ranks in the highest category with maybe 3 others.