Does Anyone Know the History of the Early Sota Turntables?

There was a bass extender module for them, which this pair has. Makes them look like Wilsons or those LS3/5A with their bass modules. Has a 7" Focal woofer in each cabinet as I recall. 

@neonknight Yes- no that you mention it, we had that at CES. The bass cabinet helped a lot.

FWIW, In any proper turntable you don't want any play in the platter bearing or tonearm bearings- and the coupling between the mount of the platter bearing and the base of the amp must be as rigid and 'dead' as possible. In this manner it makes it more difficult for the cartridge to pick up vibration at the platter since it will be common to the tonearm as well.

@neonknight That was a long time ago! It was not a large speaker though and IIRC was a 2-way.

One interesting tidbit in this letter is the mention of the Panorama speakers SOTA released. There is an ad out there for a pair of the speakers on the other side of my state, and they have been listed for quite a while. If I were a collector the speaker would be worth seeking out...but I do not have room for them. Still they are tempting!

@neonknight When SOTA was marketing that speaker was during the early-mid 90s, during the short period when Allen Perkins was with them. We showed with them at CES; I think that was about 1991. Allen had moved from Minnesota to California to work with Sumiko (SOTA); he had been previously employed at House of High Fidelity here in St. Paul, who was a SOTA dealer. IIRC Allen had a lot to do with the design of that speaker. 

@neonknight IIRC the original mat was acrylic.

Oracle makes an excellent patter pad that would be well suited on there.

If all aluminum I think there was a Supermat that was used to damp it.

@neonknight The Gen 1 Sapphire did not use the 'Supermat' as I told you earlier. Here is more information:

The Supermat was designed by Warren Gehl of Audio Research (although years prior to his employment there). Sumiko owned SOTA at the time they acquired rights to his platter pad, which was dubbed the 'Supermat'.

Its first appearance on a SOTA product was on the Cosmos. After serial number 100 they changed the formula.

The Gen 1 Sapphire predates this period so did not use the Supermat.