Clearaudio Bluemotion

Thanks for your input, but I think I will settle for this. I already stretched more than I could afford to. $1100 shipped is also a good price.
An updated Bluemotion sells at $1600 in US without shipping.
The cheapest place I found is elusivedisk which sells an updated Emotion at $1200 for a limited time. Emotion normally sells at $150~$200 less than Bluemotion.

Now, I need to worry about assembling the whole turntable. Hope it is not so hard to properly assemble and set up the tonearm and cartridge to max out.

Ihcho, you will have a lot of fun. Setting up the turntable isn't too bad but you have to take your time, carefully read the directions, and be dilligent. My experience became a tiny bit frustrating but once I got it done I saw that doing it again would be a snap. You just have to do it to see what I mean. I would be glad to offer any help if you want to drop me an e-mail. Best of luck.

It took almost 2 hours for me to set it up. I was so worried if I would accidently damage the stylus. I hope some of the instructions were better written, but as said by others it wasn't too bad. The tonearm setup wasn't that bad either.

The first record I played (Dvorak's Cello Concerto, Rostrovich, Karajan, Berlin Phil) sound much more musical than Thorens. Deeper base, wider sound stage, and more details. Also, highs are more clear. However, it was still somehow muddy and congested in full orchestration (well, the comparison is to a $30,000 system that I had a chance to listen to about 6 months ago). Thorens was much worse on this.

For some Jazz album I tried, the difference was even bigger. I thought my Thorens/Grado Gold was pretty good in handling horns, percussions, and voices, but Bluemotion sounds much more lively. More punch base, more forthcoming horns. I haven't tried much on voices yet.

Bluemotion is also much more susceptible to sound vibration on high volumne than Thorens. The two tables sit side by side on top of a two shelf audio rack. I am not using any tweak or isolation devices. Footfalls near the table are still heard, but Bluemotions' minimum-suspension design seems to work better than Thorens (which I think is a suspension TT) on the wood floor.

I am using Clearaudio microbasic preamp. Overall, I guess the money well spent. The only catch so far is the color. I thought I would like the blue color, but it actually is very dark bule. A slightly lighter blue might have been better for me.

Ihcho, great to hear that you got you TT set-up and are having so much fun with it. Don't let the color bother you, you are supposed to listen with your eyes closed!

The color does not bother me much, so I can still listen to the music with my eyes open. ;-)
Anyway, it was the first time I've ever done a turntable setup, and I learned more about all those settings.

Does your tonearm stay still without the block used to set the height? It is still sitting on the platter to support the tonearm. I am a little bit worried if the tonearm would fall without the block.