Turntable upgrade recommendations: SME vs AMG vs Technics vs other

@lewm - you certainly are not a cheapskate with all those cartridges. I assume you have several turntables as well. 

I like to think of myself as more "value conscious" than a cheapskate as 99% of people who are non-audiophiles would think I am crazy to have a low 5 figure total stereo investment and equal on the software (records) side.

I might have thought I was crazy if I was looking at me now when I was starting out the audio quest back when I was in college.

Everything is relative, and I guess if $70K is monopoly money to someone, that expenditure on a phono stage is reasonable with a total stereo (bad) investment of $400K or more, especially if it is a vinyl only source system like I have. For some reason, $400K for an entire system is not as shocking to me as $70K for a phono stage or $10K for a power cable.

Dear @dover ​@drbond  : In that SME review comparison exiast a very important difference that's that the 15A comes with the inferior 309 tonearm but my advise to the OP is to buy the 15 with the V tonearm.

drbond, you still have a very good alternative through Rega with a departure design from the 8 that's the RP10 with better tonearm too.

Even that could be not the best reference when MF made the SAT DD 100K TT he compared its quality performance against what he listened through his review with the RP 10 and this could be important to you.

In the other side, you can always go for the FMA 123 that still is a superlative unit and less expensive than the 223.

R.

@drbond - a spindle weight goes against the Rega philosophy 180 degrees. Roy is against weight and it may impact the TT PSU which is designed to move a very lightweight platter. You don't need that to eliminate the reverberation you are hearing -  Isolation/vibration control for sure will do that, but verify that whatever you use is effective with something as light as the P8 at only 10 pounds.

The only thing that worked for me was the Townshend seismic platform with the smallest possible pods (AA), which eliminates the worry of where to put the podiums or hockey pucks (which I use under my phono and amp) - not individual podiums. New turntable mat - maybe - I tested a few because my Rega mat kept lifting up occasionally when changing records, but I didn't hear any improvement and most still lifted up, so I just put a couple very small pieces of double sided scotch tape under the mat on top of the platter. Plus the black mat on the Rega table is a classic.

SME would definitely be a step up, especially with their top arm, but it will be 4-8 times the cost of the P8. Good news is that if you unload the P8 you will get a good % of your expenditure back. I'd be interested to hear your impression if you get the SME keeping the cartridge and phono stage the same. If you change multiple things at one time it will be hard to tell what improvement was due to each change. I've had that happen. Oh well, there are bigger problems in the world.

Dear @earthtones  : " has been quite innovative with the Strain Gauge ..."

Not really innovative because strain gauge cartridges exist several years ago with designs by Panasonic  ans Sao Win ( between others designers. ) and those vintage designs were designed to run with RIAA recorded LPs.

The SS design can't mimic the necessary inverse RIAA eq because its design is " different " and that's why comes with its dedicated phono stage, you can's use it with any other phono stage. No, it's a design for other kind of LP recordings but not for the ones that comes with the RIAA curve.

R.

Another vote for a Kuzma table/arm. Last week heard at a dealer a Stabi R 4POINT9 combo. Great soundstage width and depth and very focused sounding.