Turntable upgrade recommendations: SME vs AMG vs Technics vs other

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.

@mijostyn, the MSL cartridges are also based on similar design principles of very low impedance and relatively high output. There’s no doubt these are great systems, but the Signature Platinum and even Ultra Eminent are in a different price league at 10k and 7k respectively.