Master is the way to go. In my opinion it does sound better then the II. Also, the urge to upgrade and tweak the II will put you in the poor house, and in the end not give you the performance of the Master.
I haven't owned the Scout II, but I have owned the ScoutMaster Sig, and even with the upgrades, it did not perform anywhere near as well as the Clearaudio Performance, same cartridege, and was not in the same league with the Classic.
So, I suggest before you buy a new Scout II or a used Scoutmaster, find a used Clearaudio Performace that you can always sell, prob with no loss of $, before buying a new table that you would take a loss on if you don't like.
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