Does Anyone Know the History of the Early Sota Turntables?

A well conceived magnetic bearing should have no "bounce" in response to external energy like footfalls, etc. If it did, you could have the above problems, especially on a TT with a spring suspension.

@lewm Do you happen to know how this is achieved (a well-conceived one, that is)? I’d be real curious to learn. The benefit of a vertical-thrust magnetic suspension is the reduction in friction. The downside being you now have a suspension that can trap energy when excited. And most mechanisms to damp that energy would create far more friction than was saved in the first place.

Clearaudio’s implementation has the downside that they pile LOTS of platter mass on top, and then the magnetic thrust is only "just enough" to oppose this, plus a few pounds for clamping. So when the platter gets disturbed, there’s quite a bit of displacement and visible low-frequency oscillation (and in your woofers if you’re unlucky enough).

Mulveling, Are you saying that your platter in effect bounces up and down on its magnetic suspension when sufficiently disturbed? So far as I know, the first fully maglev bearing is on the Verdier.  SOTA have it now I think. My Kenwood LO7D platter is partially suspended  in the vertical plane by magnets.  There are others besides the Clearaudio.  Anyway, the Verdier bearing is solid as a rock.  So is my Kenwood bearing, albeit it should be as the platter does make contact with a solid thrust pad while the magnets just reduce the burden. I don't actually know of any maglev bearing that has much give in it so as to allow the platter to move up and down with room disturbances.  Nor can I really say that is a horrible thing. I just ran it up the flagpole to see who would salute it.  But you can imagine that the SOTA mag bearing ought to be solid, because the Cosmos also has a spring suspension. You would definitely not want the platter to be excited while also the spring suspension is excited.

@atmasphere 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. 

Sorry I do not see a magnetic bearing storing energy and act as a suspension. Have you ever tried holding two strong magnets and then compressing them together? Takes a lot of force to do this. Now this bearing rides on a fairly complaint suspension tuned to 3 Hz. Any force that tries to compress the bearing is just going to move the suspension. The platter weighs 9 pounds, so its going to take a lot of energy to make it change position relative to its stationary position created by the two magnets. I don't know about you, but I don't beat my turntable hard enough to do that while playing. And the suspension isolates it from outside forces. 

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.