Hi Spencer thanks for your reply
With the new cartridge installed I am currently (other than the switch failure) very happy with the SOTA. My plan is to run it as-is for the moment. It now bests my digital front end; I'll call that a win
I did speak with Donna she was quite helpful. There is very little trade in value for her as she stated the platter was the only thing she was interested in. The rest of the TT is a 'teardown' apparently. Which brings me to the point that 3K for a complete rebuild still leaves me with a nearly 'forty year old' SOTA by the serial numbers. It seems I would be better off to kick in a bit more for a new Star and selling off the current one for 1200$ (with the old cartridge I guess) if I went that route.
So I am here:
The springs have sagged. It still has shock absorption and the table is in a spot it has no exposure to footfall or speaker/sub vibrations. The platter is level.
The motor may not be up to current standard, but it seems to be running smooth enough I don't hear obnoxious speed fluctuation. It's true I am sure it could be improved.
The start switches don't work.
The Sumiko MDC800 was and still is highly regarded. I think the secondary market price for it is fairly strong at 800$ give or take. It works well enough. The used vintage SOTA prices are all over from 500- or less up to around 1500-1800 depending.
The new AT cartridge did allow me to get the length issue with placement sorted, so that was huge...
And finally- the bearing. The platter spins smoothly and with a quiet vinyl runout it shows an excellent low noise floor. I am sure it could be bettered... but I guess if it were an issue some apparent rumble would be evident but I truly can not hear much at this time.
A man's got to know his limitations... (Clint Eastwood in what movie?) and for now I think the new cartridge has really hit the sweet spot. Bundling up and shipping a what seems to be (mostly) working TT to face the hazard and liability of the FedEx monkeys (forgive me if you work for FedEx- I ship $$$K with them a year so have a subjective opinion) is more risk than it seems to benefit for the moment.
Plus I'm inherently lazy, so there's that...
Cheers,
RW