I suppose you’ve made an in depth analysis of servo circuits in DD turntables and found the “problems” and that they’re all alike. And very different from the Eclipse system, because you own it. Bollocks.
Early SOTA vs New Something: Conundrum
Hiya,
In a nutshell:
I have a Series I SOTA Star from prior to 1986. I've had it about 12 years. It has early AudioQuest B300 cartridge. The Sumiko MDC-800 Arm is the best part of the unit. No modifications. No maintenance ever as far as I know.
The Arm was installed where a previous arm sat (not by me) and is not positioned correctly.
It needs at least a new cartridge. But after a chat on the phone with SOTA, it sounds like after these years (plus the arm mis-location) it needs a bit more than that. Upgrades, adjustments etc...
I could do a new cartridge, but it appears a waste without doing other needed work to the TT.
Cartridge, Tonearm board with other needed upgrades I'm looking at about the price of a new table. Such as a Technics 1200G or some such version of.
Time to jump ship? Or I could ignore it all and continue to run it as is. It honestly doesn't sound horrible. Not great either. But bad enough I don't play vinyl much anymore in favor of CD- digital
I do have an extensive LP collection and wouldn't mind listening to it...
Cheers,
RW
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- 38 posts total
@mijostyn thanks for correction re: Triplanar. Know of any others with same issue? BTW, my Audiomods has VTA tower and fits just fine, even with dust cover. Let's not start the whole dustcover debate again, please ;-) Also, pretty sure my new Nova VI also has adjustable lead shot well for balancing like you mentioned older models do. Sota set mine up and I haven't had to take the arm out yet, so I can't confirm.
@rwbadley sounds like you found the right balance (pun) between reasonable improvements and your situation. Kudos! Cheers, Spencer |
@lewm , Where you talking to me, the Bullocks part? I said the Eclipse motor is just as accurate as any direct drive. There are numerous ways to control a DD motor but I am not familiar enough with any of them to comment. I am just going by the spec sheets. The overall accuracy of a belt drive table depends almost entirely on the quality of the belt, machining of the pully and platter along with the cleanliness of the whole. I got that RPM speed and wow and flutter app on my phone and discovered that the wow and flutter of my old Sapphire had risen to almost 0.3%. With a clean up and new belt it dropped right back down to .05%. A modern state of the art table might run 0.03%. Belts wear out. So don't DD motors, it just takes them longer. The thrust bearing gets noisy and wow and flutter specs also deteriorate. Belts are easy to replace. I own the SOTA because I honestly think it is the best turntable you can buy for the money not to mention that it is very close to the absolute best. I can easily spend five times as much on a turntable but I see nothing I care for until you get to the Dohmann Helix. I am waiting for Dohmann to complete his vacuum platter and dust cover. Until then I will stay with the Sota. Bollocks to you too. @sbank , The Cosmos does not have the lead shot well. The tonearm boards are sized to match the tonearm weight. You have to get a new arm board for each tonearm anyway so it makes sense. Sota use to use a standardized arm board so the shot well was critical. How old is your Nova? |
@mijostyn It's about 3.5yrs old, a few months after the first Nova VI started shipping. |
- 38 posts total