Turntable Decision

Have you concidered a Merrill Heirloom with the outer ring clamp
or an AR table ?
Vinyl Nirvana has an upgraded Heirloom for sale , 
there is also an AR that's been upgraded using Merril componets on E-Bay with an extremely  low bid !

I own a Merrill Heirloom that I upgraded the springs and motor , a RB300 arm upgraded with Incognito wiring and Expressimo weight ,
my plan is to replace the arm with an Audiomods ( someday ) .
If I were to replace the table then I'd go with a Sota with the vacuum hold down ( easier to use than the ring clamp ) .

I have owned two out of three of the tables mentioned and would agree that Sota would be the best choice.

I still use a first generation Cosmos in my second system!

Has anyone heard the new entry level SME? SME seems to be the holy grail for a lot of vinylistas.

@gareents, Agree that the Schick arms aren't the best match. I've read many comments implying that the longer versions are much preferred and you'll want a shorter arm with the Sota. The Schicks also tend to be paired with heavier vintage cartridges like the SPU series, or the Denon 103s of any vintage. 
When I discussed arms with Donna at Sota(~12/2019-1/2020 SME and Jelco were the safe/popular matches. But she was comfortable with many others & had made armboards for most.  

I've only heard Graham arms on Basis tables, so no opinion on that. 

Beyond my Audiomods V, the arms I'd consider upgrading to would be the Kuzma 4Point 9" or a Schroeder. 

@mijostyn, no I don't hear any tone warble with my vacuum hold-down, which works great with no fussing required, unlike many fiddly more expensive alternatives. But I can't recall any tone warble when I had SP10MkII w/EPA-250 arm either. I'm not suggesting anyone experiment with dimes to hear something we all want to avoid ;-) I'll take your word for it regarding the theory.
In my head, the vacuum and Reflex clamp combine to contribute to the solid ease, relaxed nature and black background from LP to LP. Hope that helps. Cheers,
Spencer

@sbank , Of course you don't here a warble with vacuum hold down. That is my point. Reflex clamping is a close second. The issue with reflex clamping is, recurrent use may cause cracking of the label and it does not work well with 200 gm records. I suggest the penny or dime experiment with a test record because it is easy to hear the warble. With music things get a lot more complicated. It is harder to hear the speed irregularity but it is there and even worse because warps are more acute than the warp you make with a dime. 

The 4 Point 9 is an excellent arm and I know for a fact Sota has installed one on a Cosmos.