UPGRADE FROM VPI SCOUTMASTER

Turntables as a category are very small production run items. As such they absolutely have to command really good profit margins to be worth making at all. This explains why if you look back across the whole field you find the best most highly regarded makers only make a very few models. Kuzma would be one. Linn. Basis. 

The problem is that people coming into it, they rely on what they see right now, which is VPI and Rega ads and reviews (but, I repeat myself) plastered everywhere. Takes a very long time to realize they are the Bose of turntables. Apply a little logic. It takes a lot of advertising to get the word out at that level. Money spent on ads cannot be spent developing product. This makes it a lot harder to even find the really good stuff. Explains perfectly why people like rsf507 who went to the trouble speak so highly.

The best advertising is the customers. Assuming of course you listen to them.

This explains why if you look back across the whole field you find the best most highly regarded makers only make a very few models. Kuzma would be one.

I like Kuzma products but the last time I looked they had 5 tables, 11 tonearms, 6 cartridges and a bunch of accessories in their 2019 line up.  Rega has 8 tables, 4 tonearms and 9 cartridges in their line up.

Hey Millercarbon, you sucked yourself into that one. However I would much rather own a Kuzma than any of those others. He is a brilliant engineer. The Kuzma 4pt 9 is the best tonearm for the money you can buy (big period)

The George Merrill REAL at around $8500 sounded very good, and was in use by a number of exhibitors, at AXPONA. Not sure how many versions there are!

I am another former VPI owner who thinks they are good, not great. I am sure that the new DD with "Fatboy" gimbled arm at 30K is a great deck. But at the price points of everything below that deck, there are better alternatives. I have said it before and I will say it again-the VPI unipivot arms are a pain to set up and even when set up properly they are not great. VPI has never gotten vibration control down to a science; their footers look fancy but are pos, their base/plinths are haphazardly designed for looks and not based on science, and to top it all off, they have a penchant for cobbling together a new design every six months based on the "let's take the platter from bin number 5 and combine it with the plinth from bin number 4 and the tonearm from bin number 2 and call it this cute name". They ought to be called VPEye. They are designed in my humble opinion for people who don't know better and shop with their eyes, much like successful speaker manufacturers. At the end of the day, managing motor noise and having a well thought-out, precision, easily adjustable great-sounding tonearm are paramount. Once you have had the pleasure of using a really top-grade tonearm, well, there is no going back. With VPEye, the tonearm adjustments are awkward to access at best, the tiny set screws are easily stripped, the antiskate is a joke, and there is something very peculiar about the unipivot design in which the sound just never gets to the great level. It is virtually impossible to extract the true potential of the better MC cartridges on the market with a VPEye unipivot arm. 
Since I am on a rant/roll, try replacing the motor pulley sometime. What a joke. Your expensive "precision lathed motor pulley" will likely take so much force to get onto the motor shaft that your motor will be damaged. And then it won't even spin without some wobble. That was my experience when I tried to replace my motor pulley on my Prime in order to use two belts rather than one. I had all kinds of other similar issues with any attempt to replace parts. Teutonic precision is missing. VPEye uses a host of vendors to machine the various parts their McDonald's McNuggets are conglomerated with that often just don't comply with spec.