Calling all Sota fans.

I use a SOTA Cosmos Eclipse and have a SME V on it, it's a very capable table. 

One thing worth mentioning is that many of the experiences posted above are based on the vintage tables originally produced in the 1980s and 90s, which are not representative of the current generation of tables. Over the years SOTA has undergone a steady change, and the current tables have a different designer who has brought a meaningful set of updates to the product line. 

The sapphire bearing has been replaced by a magnetic one, which moves a great bearing assembly forward to a world class one. The platter has been reformulated to have en less of an acoustic presence and the newer SOTA are more balanced tonally, the sub chassis are stiffer and more inert than previous designs, the vacuum module has a better control and monitoring system, the motor is DC with the Phoenix Engineering control system being integrated into the package, and the overall build internally is more precise and of higher quality. 

While the current SOTA models share similar if not the same names to the vintage tables, and have an appearance that looks to be the same, the tables have evolved into a world class product and the vintage tables while nice products are not really representative of the current generation offerings. 

@garkat62 

I don't know if the analysis can be as simple as A>B>C or anything along those lines. When you get to upper tier tables and analog equipment in general my experience is they sound more similar than different as they succeed in removing so many causes of coloration that effects analog playback. The next thing that comes into play is that very few systems are set up with the exact same high end arms, cartridges, and phono stages so that only the drive unit can be isolated and evaluated. Couple that with the fact that certain arms, and therefore certain cartridges can shine on one type of table architecture but possibly not another. So how do you really create a level playing field to evaluate these tables?

The best most of us common people can hope for is a chance to hear an analog package that contains the table we are interested in, and have it in a quality system and make our mind up based on what we hear and what we need or appreciate in analog playback. 

For me the SOTA Cosmos Eclipse w a SME V and Transfiguration Audio Proteus is a fine analog playback system, one of the better ones I have heard. With that being said I also enjoy a Scheu Analog Das Laufwerke No 2, and that is a completely different design concept, yet performs at a similar level. 

At some point you have to make a choice based on what your preferences are and immerse yourself in the experience.