If I were to replace my VPI Airies1 with a 4k or so budget?

SOTA Sapphire.

Mike

Thank for this.  Indeed I have told on several accasions that the Aries is going to very hard to beat without spending a lot more money.  I have wanted to call VPI to ask them about upgrading the tonearm- i wasn't sure it is possible but then again I have no real reason to think that.  On top of that I could have tonearm rewired with better quality wire (nordost etc)

If I were to actually change anayway Ithink a Sota would have to be on the list.  Yje 2 above I was asking about were new offerings I am less familiar with I was curious about.  In other words, my search not be restricted to those.

Another friend of mine suggested that if a really wanted to make a change and improve the sould too he would think that nothing lessthan a Bardo would do....and that one is a fantabulous amount of cash- even used.

I would say ditch the flywheel which is the major space-eater and add a motor controller specifically the SOTA Eclipse if the vpi motor is ac synchronous. You’ll experience a major upgrade AND a reduction in size in one fell swoop. If the vpi motor is not ac synchronized then replace it with one that is.

I would say ditch the flywheel which is the major space-eater and add a motor controller specifically the SOTA Eclipse if the vpi motor is ac synchronous. You’ll experience a major upgrade AND a reduction in size in one fell swoop. If the vpi motor is not ac synchronized then replace it with one that is.

Tone arms can always be upgraded, and to just about any arm, only depending on how willing you are to do (or pay for) the work, and modify the existing table. Which depending on the arm in question might be surprisingly easy or near impossibly hard. So that's the real question: which arm? Origin Live are highly recommended and greatly simplify things as they all use the standard Rega cutouts.

That being said you're messing with the source, arguably the most important component and one you sure seem to like and one you and it seems everyone else thinks will be hard to equal or better, so I would counsel extreme caution. 

If space really is tight I think your integrated amp idea makes a lot more sense. Only drop the inboard phono stage idea, there's just no way you're gonna get good sound and why when something like the Herron is so reasonably priced? 

You already have experience with Prima Luna. Seems to me you could sell that, and the Pass amps, buy a Prima Luna integrated and Herron phono stage, get a nice bump in sound quality and maybe even have money left over to put towards a nice Origin Live arm for the VPI.