How to improve a Sota Sapphire III?

Denny,

I owned a Star Sapphire III a few years ago and it was the best anaolog experience i ever had. I do not know if you have an electronic flywheel with your rig. I had one with mine and it greatly improved speed accuracy. That would be a great upgrade if you do not already have one.

I had a Sumiko Studio arm with my Sota. It was essentially a tricked out MMT. If you have an MMT now a great upgrade would be to damp it and replace the existing phono cable wire with a more detailed phono cable. That would upgrade your arm to close to studio status.

Sota makes a record clamp that is designed to work with the Sapphire table. Another relatively inexpensive upgrade is a product called, "The Analog Survival Kit". It mainly consists of a wrap that you apply to the tonearm. This wrap adds damping which improves the performance of almost every tonearm. It cost less than 50 dollars when I purchased it years ago.

Good Luck,
Drew

Here is a $2.00 improvement that will suprise you.
1. First clean the belt with alcohol and a clean cotton cloth.
2. Clean the platter and pulley with alcohol.

3. Obtain some pure talcum (no mixatures with perfumes ect.) power and completely dust the belt.

4. Reinstall and smile.

I had a Sapphire until a few weeks ago. I sent it back to Sota (in Chicago) to see what they could do to upgrade and/or modify. After spending some very enjoyable time on the phone with a couple of the people there I decided to trade my Sapphire for a Star. The people there were great and very accomadating to my wants and budget. Try WWW.SOTATURNTABLES.COM. It was time and money well spent for me. I hope to have my Star next week and I'm jacked!