SOTA NOVA, HR-X VPI, Technics 1200G recommendations?

They were all lifeless in comparison and all of us heard the same thing. I sold a bunch of them at Luskin’s and had I don’t know how many people complain of the way they sounded.

There can be a lot of variables and especially back then, the platter pad was a big one one that was ignored. I know the person (Warren Gehl of ARC) who designed an ambitious platter pad which did well controlling the LP resonance as well as that of the platter- and any machine that had one sounded better than one without (once the arm height issue was sorted). IME it didn’t matter if it was DD or belt; that platter pad was more important. It weighed 5 pounds so not every machine could work with it.

FWIW Sumiko acquired the rights from Warren and the mat went on the Cosmos, because Sota was owned by Sumiko at the time (IIRC this happened due to Allen Perkins’ association through my first dealer, before Allen left Sumiko). But Sota changed the formula after about 100 ’tables were made so they didn’t have to pay Warren the rights (again IIRC). This is why I had an early Cosmos (serial number 0, later destroyed by FedEx). All this went down prior to Donna and her husband acquiring Sota.


Since I’ve got one of those pre-Sota platter pads I can set it up on any machine that will handle it. It works a treat on the Technics. I did like the way the vacuum system got rid of rumble, most of which is really just warp.

Ralph is a mentor to me so I hate to correct him and I do so with trepidation, but stylus velocity is not a determinant of skating force. Just saying.

It is so great to have people with long histories in this great hobby and also the phenomenal memories of what went down long before I got interested in a "stereo system."

Lots of great info & history here 👍

FWIW, the TK850M would not fit the Technics 1200 but no doubt the 9” TK850S would as long as you could find one.  Conical/spherical styli not recommended for shorter tonearms.
As noted (& IMO), the Technics is ultimately only as good as its record mat. A stellar deck when you get it right and an easy recommendation.

@lewm, I think there might be some confusion here. I think, correct me if I am wrong the you are refering to groove speed which slows down towards the center of the record. That does not affect friction and skating much. Groove velocity refers to the distance the stylus has to travel in the groove. In a more heavily modulated groove the stylus has to travel farther but never in a straight line. The stylus has to keep changing direction which takes energy. Thus as the groove velocity increases friction and skating increase and the groove becomes progressively harder to track. This is why skating is so hard to peg. It keeps changing with modulation (groove velocity)