I am asking your opinion as to the best turntable

Hi Bill,
I have followed the evolution of your system and your room for quite some time and must say that I have been mightily impressed by what you have accomplished.

If sonics in a vinyl playback system are your ultimate priority, i would invite you to take a long look at Lloyd Walker's offering, in the Proscenium. I have had the opportunity to listen often to this table in another AudiogoNer's system and am always stunned at it's resolution, dead silence, reliability, ease of maintenance and drop dead good looks. Granted, it requires a very stable shelf to sit on and requires space for the air pump, so in that regard it doesn't meet the criteria for small platform, but its ease of use, sonics and reliability are second to none.

If small platform is your goal, certainly the SME/30 is an outstanding choice, but some remarkable things are also being said about VPI's Super Scoutmaster. couple that with the Walker Motor Controller and a great cartridge and you may be astounded by what a less-than-ten thousand dollar investment in vinyl playback can accomplish in a set it and forget it TT.

The Teres users here may want to weigh in on what some of the upper level Teres products can do, but not having any experience with them, I will defer to their knowledge.

since you know as much about turntables as I do I'll resist the temptation to name the usual suapects. My Hi Fi + Annual arrived with a gorgeous turntable that is the recipient of their product of the year award. It is a stand alone model much like the Voyager. The Blue Pearl Audio JEM 48000 British Pounds.(arm and cartridge extra) Issue 36,pg69.Mounted with the wheaton tr-planar(my personal favorite) and the Lyra titan. magnetic main bearing. Enjoy!
www.bluepearlaudio.co.uk

I think you are destined for a Teres 360 and a Schroder Reference arm. Just my gut feeling.

Bill -- knowing where you're coming from & where you are, it's difficult to recommend a "best". Rather, and keeping to what I've LISTENED to, I'll throw three choices based on sonics of course, + EASE of set-up & operation, reliability and EASE of maintenance.

Simon Yorke S7.
Yorke provides his own arm (VERY user friendly), but I believe the Schroeder Ref is superior. This is virtually a set-up once, plug & play TT. Maintenance is, well, zero; you might, however, consider throwing some oil into the bearings shafts, at least once. Really delighful. It's guaranteed for life, BTW, and if you ever feel like having it checked out, etc, that's free too (I think you pay postage).
This TT can be ordered to accommodate multiple arms if you wish.

Aas-Gabriel
A Swiss player that includes an arm that is similar, but not identical to the Schroeder design. Here the platter is suspended in an opposing magnetic field and the motor is decoupled, so contact between the basic TT components (motor, platter, arm board) is minimal. This TT can also accommodate two or more arms.
Problem: it is cumbersome (takes up space and is heavy). The platter magnet (losing its field) may or may not be an issue. I would expect not. I never had any indication of a problem.

Clearaudio Master Reference -- w/OUT the arm!! (Schroeder ref instead.) Not difficult to set-up and operate. Belt driven -- i.e. a possible maintenance issue. Cutting to the chase, "belt" is basically a chic name for any bog standard elastic band of suitable diametre. So, maintenance: minimal. BTW, the motors' speed stability is exemplary.
Problem: takes up space; price (the "Clearaudio premium")

That's the extent of my "upmarket" experience. Other NOT stratospheric TTs are very good/excellent but, to my (limited) knowledge cannot match the above. After all, you have lived with the stratospheric levels of a Sirius & now with a V. Indian:)

p.s. I must admit that the SME 30/V (that's the only SME combo I've tried), beautifully engineered as it is and user friendly, never did it for me sonically.

Cheers!