Worth having my SOTA Sapphire refurbished?

I and a friend have had various Sota stuff upgraded many times over twenty years.The service is superb,and very reasonably priced for what one gets...which is basically a state of the art product!

good luck

I had my Star Sapphire upgraded to a Nova Series V. For the price I paid for the upgrade I would have had to spend at least double on a new table to come close to the sonics of the refurbished SOTA. Kirk and Donna are great to deal with and if you enjoy the SOTA sound stick with it.

Rebbi, comments on two subjects for you.

First, your SOTA. I'll cast another vote to keep it. There are a couple of tests you can perform so that Kirk and Donna can advise you. For your bearing, remove the belt and spin the platter by hand. Put your ear directly over the spindle and listen for any sound (an inexpensive stethoscope from a medical supply house can be a great audio test tool, in this case applying to the top of the plinth). If it is quiet, note how long the platter spins after your manual start. If your table is noisy, does not spin smoothly, or does not slow down gradually, it is likely you have a bearing problem and will need to send it in.

Concerning your springs, the sprung plinth within the frame should hang the same distance below the frame on all four sides. I believe this distance should be either 1/8 or 1/4 inch. Kirk can verify this. If your springs are bad (stretched), you have a couple of options. A few years ago I bought a used SOTA Sapphire which seemed to be slightly loose so I disassembled the whole thing, filled the screw holes, and reassembled. If you feel mechanically inclined enough to do this, you could remove your springs. Then you can either buy new springs from SOTA or have your springs re-tempered (there is a how-to post on this on either A'gon or Vinyl Asylum). If you're not up to disassembly/reassembly, SOTA can perform any restorations necessary.

Second, addressing your speakers in your new, smaller room. Since you liked the sound of your Vandersteens, you might consider buying Vandersteen VSM (surround) speakers to hang on the wall. Because they are bass limited, adding one or two Vandy subwoofers can provide a more balanced, full range sound. This could achieve three features: 1) retaining the Vandy characteristic sound with speakers designed to perform from the wall, 2) good WAF because they are on the wall rather than placed out in the room (where most small monitors perform best) and they are available in white or can be painted to better blend in visually, and 3) because they would be out of the way, your room can more easily double as a guest room without needing to move anything before and after your guests.

Good luck.

Well, don't count the Sequerra Metronome 7.7 Mk6 out just yet! It's true that Acoustic Sounds no longer carries them, and when they did, the $1500/pr price put them out of your budget. But now, according to this Web page these little time-aligned speakers are available factory direct for $850/pair. And note the 3/03/08 date stamp at the bottom of this web page, so I guess this is current information.

Call or email and see what happens.

I had exactly what you ask about done recently. As mentioned, they do a great job and brought mine up to SeriesV (i think). I also went with an Origin arm and couldn't be happier. The rest of the system is mega-bucks and I find the Sota holds its own with anything even remotely close in price and is even more than I had hoped for in the new vinyl age. Enjoy.