What is the best tonearm for a SOTA Nova turntable?

Btw, my expectation was the $8K was for both the rebuild ($3K) plus the purchase of a used ARC PH8 ($5K) phono stage. I am not sure that would change @Holmz comments… but that was what I intended to say.

I got it, but it’ll be north of 10k with the cartridge…

I cannot comment on whether the rebuild is needed or is a good idea.
(I ordered it, but it is not in yet.)

However my TT sounds pretty good still, with just a cart and new head shell. And I am not not sure one needs a high $ phono stage unless a LOMC is in the picture.

so as he already has a cart to listen to, then we should await the conclusions.

@gyneguy225 , cartridges are balanced devices! All you have to do to use a balanced phono stage is solder XLRs to your tonearm wires. It would take me about 15 minutes. The only arms you can't do this to in my knowledge are the Rega arms. 

The Kuzma is $4,000, the Schroder is $5000 and I am not sure what a current SME is going for. There are many used SME V's now on the used market but I would not buy a used arm. Bearings are too easy to damage and significant bearing damage can be very hard to detect. As an example, If a turntable travels by car ANYWHERE without first removing the arm and placing it in a box where all of it is supported in foam (the original box) the bearings have been damaged. 

The ET2 has no gimbles to wear out or loosen up. It is air bearing and that's one of its pluses. I can sling some solder but my eyes are so bad, I couldn't see those tonearm wires to solder them. Melting away the insulation is trouble as well.

My new cartridge arrives in a few days and I'll report back about it. That will determine my next move.

I used an ET2 on a SOTA Star Sapphire until around 2009. Still one of my favorite analog rigs I ever owned or heard. Anyone that had an issue with the ET2, obviously did not have any experience using or setting one up. Over 10 trouble free years for me! 

Re Mijostyn’s advice on purchasing a current driven phono stage:  (1) That’s a fine idea if you plan to limit yourself to LOMC cartridges with internal resistance preferably less than 12 to 15 ohms, the lower the better, and (2) my own experience with a BMC MMCI ULN Signature phono stage suggests it is superb but not necessarily better than high end voltage driven phono stages with high gain, for listening to the aforementioned LOMC, low internal R cartridges. Not inferior but also not definitively superior.  In a final attempt to be absolutely clear, I don’t hear anything that tells me current drive is going to take over the universe.  But it will assume an important place therein.