A Thought Exercise: Consolidating Analog To One Table and Two Cartridges

As for TT's being noticeably improved.

As a guidance to the experiences that may be encountered.

Recently my Local HiFi Group got together to demonstrate Three Belt Drive TT's in use. One is a Second System TT (Heavily Modified LP12 ) and the others are both the main Vinyl Source (Schue with Origin Live modification and a Soulines Kubrick DCX).

This was a session I was not able to attend, but did receive a decent account of the assessments made.

The main vinyl source TT's (Schue > OL Illustrious Arm and Soulines > Reed Arm) are exchange TT's with exchange Tonearms being used in place of more expensive TT's.

The earlier evaluations given by the owners of the Schue/Soulines, was that the TT's were very capable and there was seemingly nothing detected as being amiss with the exchange models in use as a source.

On the day of the Comparison Demonstration, during the evaluations using the TT's different Arms and Cart's, there was not a unanimous agreement that one Model was the overall preferred.

The outcome was that there was differences noticed in how the Bass Frequencies were presented and how a particular Track, had shown differences in the Soundstage, where it has been able to expand beyond the Speakers.

With this as a evaluation it does seem that the TT and supporting ancillaries were capable of showing subtle differences, maybe even a noticeable difference, but not one that is detected to the point it is referred to as a game changer.

The real point of interest, is that the Schue and Soulines are claimed by their owners to present in a manner that is not disconcerting, when the recollection is made to how they compare to the superseded TT's that are approx' 5 x more to purchase. 

When a similar event occurred on the same system with a DD TT vs a few Belt Drive TT's of which one was the above LP12, all attendees present were very impressed with the DD demonstration, the attraction it had as an improved presentation was unanimous. 

The impact the Demo' had was the LP12 owner purchased a SP10R shortly after and another Belt Drive Owner bought a SP10 MkII to undergo similar modifications to the one that was demo'd, another member dug out a long-time stored SP10 MkII to get on board. The owner of the SME20/12 a little later on become motivated to make a change and went of in their new direction, having been of the opinion there was more to be attained through bringing in a different TT and Tonearm.

Primary Control Kinea. End game. I will be bringing one in later this year to demo.... STST meanwhile a stone cold bargain. But these are new not used per se.

@solypsa my post referencing the impact a DD TT had on a Group of which some were dedicated to Belt Drive is not a recommendation for a DD TT.

It is just a pointer to the OP, that is a Belt Drive user,  that when it comes to experiencing TT's a open mind is going to help with the end decision that is yet to be found. 

I did similar many years ago within the same Group, with showing the virtues of affordable Idler Drive TT's, especially with improved Bearing and Plinth Design.

A selection of the Group acquired GL75's, followed up by having the usual fun created through tweaking them, where the Mechanical Parts and the Plinth Design were attended to, with the outcome being a lot of TT Performance, for a very sensible monies outlaid.

The Idlers at the time did not supersede the Belt Drive TT's but did offer a good alternative experience.

It was the later DD TT demo' that caused the Belt Drives to be moved on from as the main TT's. 

The OP will have their best opportunity to learn about the new direction wanted to be taken, if encouraged to receive/experience demo's of all Drive Types for a TT.

The Kinea DD TT you are referring to is probably going to retail at approx' $15000 as a TT without a Tonearm.  

Unless you’re on concrete slab, don’t consider selling the SOTA. I tried to make a Clearaudio work on a suspended wood floor, and it was just too tough. I suppose there’s a Townshend Podium I could try as a potential "proper" solution, but the SOTA 4-point suspension simply breezes through all issues posed by this room. Moving on from a SOTA to anything else is risky, unless you’re on slab.

I agree it’s annoying that SOTA supports just 1 arm up to ~ 9.5 - 10" effective length and ~ 2.3 lbs weight. However, I’m not even a fan of 12" arms (I doubt the benefit outweighs the problems) and if you get a high quality arm with removable headshells (Ikeda, FR) or arm wands (Graham) then you can support 2 cartridges with just a little swapping effort - most cartridges are the same height and Graham has easy VTA setting.

Verismo and Transfiguration sounds like a pretty wicked 1-2 combo! And you have quite a collection of nice vintage Ortofons. My guess, from experience with an MC20, is they have a very different sound quality from modern Ortofons: low output, very little coils, large soft cobalt magnets versus stiff small neodymium magnets and larger coils to offset their new less-ferrous armatures. The sonic perspective is very different. Not too much like anything available today. Be careful to not sell something you’ll miss later!

@pindac 

​​​​​​Previous to these tables I owned a SP 10 MK II in a constrained layer plinth, Denon PP75 in VPI plinth, and a Brinkman Bardo. Of the three I preferred the Denon. Prior to that I also owned a TD124 and a 401. Now every table stands on it's own merits, but as a general rule I find I appreciate these belt drives over the others.