Replacing my old soda Sapphire: which clearaudio

I have both, Sota Star and Clearaudio Performance. the Performance is a very nice table, dead quiet and speed right on the money. The Satisfy carbon arm is also very good. I dont think you will lose any performance by switching to the Clearaudio, but you will need to isolate it in some manner if room vibrations are an issue. The Sota has about the best suspension system around, so you will lose that benefit.

your Sota is built with a spring isolation suspension system built in. One of the best. So it is not susceptable to external vibrations as would a ridgid mount turntable. If your floor is anything but a concrete slab, you might have issues with vibrations from your foot steps causing vibration in your turntable, and therefore distortion in your cartridge. also, if you play loud, bass note vibration can cause feedback. Your cartridge is basically a microphone, picking up vibration whether it is on the record or in the air. The Sota is designed to minimize those effects. A ridgid table has to sit on something that absorbs those vibrations from the floor before they get to the table.

Current Sotas do not bounce around as the spring system is better controlled. The Sota Cosmos uses a different motor which is mounted on the solid aluminum plinth and therefore suspended, so those issues of unsprung motor/sprung platter are eliminated, but truthfully, with the later suspension, there was little movement even when changing records. The Oracle Delphi V and VI are like that too, compared to the early models which were much more affected by movement. The suspended table manufacturers have fine tuned their suspension systems after learning that you dont have to be as delicate in your suspension system to get the desired isolation. The Sota Cosmos motor is also designed with minimal vibration, enough so that I cant tell when its running by feel or by ear.

the old outboard power supply has nothing to do with the above issues, which in my opinion are a non issue anyway. None of my Sotas have exibited sideways movement during play after initial startup anyway, and watching the tonearm during play doesnt reveal any side to side motion that isnt caused by an eccentric record spindle hole.

I have also never had an issue with tonearm weight being a problem, from SME 309 to Helius Omega, both substantial arms. These suspension systems are designed to filter out vibrations around the 2hz level, with other means of dealing with higher frequency vibrations.