@gyneguy225 , First off, good digital is always going to sound better than even the finest analog. My mistake. I should have said," is always going to be more accurate." Personally, I am into records because I have thousands of them collected over 64 years, it is a tradition I instinctively like because it is burned into me and it is more of a challenge than digital.
I suggest to people that if they do not already have a large record collection they should avoid analog and spend the money on music.
Your Nova is an excellent turntable and can easily be updated to modern spec. You will have to spend serious money to do better and the improvement would be marginal, not something everyone would notice. You have an excellent cartridge. As long as it is in good shape there is no reason to change. Tonearms are very important. The ET 2 is a terrible arm for a number of reasons and should be avoided at all cost. The Sota tables are limited to a small group of 9"-10" arms. The Triplanar will not fit without serious modification. The three great arms that I know from experience will fit are the Kuzma 4 Point 9, the Schroder CB and the SME V. The Origin Live arms will fit but I hear a lot of complaints about their service. Some of the Reed arms might fit but I am not entirely sure. I have a relatively new Sota Cosmos Vacuum and I chose the Schroder CB because I sincerely thought it was the best arm for this type of turntable and over the 9 months or so I have had it nothing has dissuaded me from that opinion. The only other arm I would really like to own is the Schroder LT but it will not fit on a Sota and I am not ready to buy another turntable.
The only other thing I would like to see in your system would be a current mode phono stage like the Sutherland Loco or Little Loco, the BMC MCCI or the Channel D Seta L or Lino C. I own a Seta L Plus which I am enjoying very much. I am also using digital RIAA correction. You need a flat phono stage output for that which al the Channel D phono stages have. Your Lyra will work beautifully with one of these stages. You will notice more gain, less noise and more accurate bass.
