SOTA cosmos turntables

With Sota's in general the big difference is the vacuum. The house sound is often described as a little dark, but the vacuum, especially when paired with the reflex clamp, makes for rock solid imaging. I've heard the Avids and my recollection was that their sound is a little more... bright maybe, but thats not controlling for cartridge or amps so it would be hard to say for sure.

I have a Star Saphire thats about 20-years old. The vacuum works beautifully. I've heard non-sota owners claim the vacuum is fussy, but I've never had so much as a hickup with mine. I can only imagine that a new Cosmos would be that much better.

I own a Cosmos Mk IV. In the past, I've owned two VPIs, a Michell Orbe, a Well Tempered Reference, and others even further back. The Cosmos is far and away the best of the lot. I have auditioned the Brinkmann and an SME 20, but can't make a direct comparison since they were in relatively unfamiliar systems, although I can say that absolutely nothing stood out as being clearly superior to the Cosmos.

Sota tables,particularly the Cosmos are superb in every way.They also happen to be under-priced,IMO.Some folks can recognize this,and are rewarded with a "first class" product.Others are impressed by higher priced products(though not a drop better,in performance,and helping to allow an arm/cartridge to extract musical information).

Common sense usually prevails,and the customer service/support offered by a "local" manufacturer should be seriously considered.

Best of luck