Thanks for the reply, yes a catch 22 indeed.
Yes it is an AQ B200. It may have been a rebadged something or other. It’s 20+ years old and then some.
Yes the springs have sagged. So the unit needs shipped back for that and then it just goes up from there. Should have a new motor I've been told. Maybe the new psu and what about the vacuum unit etc.... eek it gets big pretty fast.
Or maybe find a good used cartridge, toss it on and ignore the rest of it.
Whether to spend big coin making the old table current, Maybe buy a new SOTA but then still need all the additional on top of that.
Or, is the Technics so inferior with a decent cartridge? It can’t be worse than what I have currently. The tonearm is 1cm back of where it should be. I have to run the cartridge at a 10 degree angle from straight in the headshell, which incredibly results in good balance L/R with a solid center.
BTW the TT goes to Luxman l595 MC phono then out to custom Altec 604 speakers with a several subs filling in the bottom. Pretty dynamic with decent enough soundstage and imaging. The 604 are not the last word in HF resolution...