[prepress]

Originally Posted by mulveling

A SOTA Sapphire or Nova is an excellent buy. I got hooked on vinyl for life when I wisely chose to start with a SOTA Star III (predecessor to Nova). They will run forever with minimal maintenance. Their highly effective suspension means you don't need to design exotic, difficult, or expensive isolation solutions around the deck. I still have mine, refreshed to Nova V status. Get an exotic wood and it will turn heads for life. The SME 309 should be a good match. I had no problem changing the belt on my SOTA; never heard that before? I have a Clearaudio Master Innovation I also love but it is 6x the price much more difficult to optimize; requires a lot of external isolation.

I had seen a YouTube video of someone attempting to change the belt on his SOTA (I don't remember which model) but he propped the 'table up between two chairs and went underneath it to get to the belt. That scared me off, even though I wasn't considering a new turntable at the time.

Fast forward to another website posting from 2017 with a guy who has a Sapphire, and his version of replacing the belt is far simpler. I just found this. Here's the link:
https://stevefolberg.wordpress.com/2...ire-turntable/

The Sapphire I saw at NYAS was probably a custom finish; piano black isn't one of the standard choices on the website. But it was gorgeous. What had me thinking of a SOTA was their reputation for being practically immune to footfalls and other nasties like them. I have my VPI on a Gingko Cloud platform, and it's a vast improvement, but the VPI is 27 years old, and even though I haven't been playing much vinyl, I still like the idea of a good turntable in the setup. The SOTA is deeper than my VPI, but it looks as though it will fit the shelf I have. Thanks for the encouragement.