TT suggestions -- please

I would only add that there are a LOT of "suspended" turntable designs out on the market now. This does not make them all "equal" in terms of design or immunity to external vibration.

To quote John Atkinson of Stereophile in regards to the Sota design, "it is the turntable that Sir Isaac Newton would have designed". In a direct comparison under identical test conditions, the Sota offered 50 dB's more isolation than a Linn. This is not a "guesstimate" or some made up number, but actual results of bench testing in a review. In fact, in that same review, they reviewer stated that the Sota surpassed any table that they had ever measured at that time by at least 40 - 50 dB's in terms of isolation. Believe me, that is no small feat !!!

In electrical terms, that means that the Sota can withstand over 10,000 times ( equivalent to 40 db's ) the amount of external vibration as a "good" table and still be just as quiet. The reviewer in question considered it to be the "ultimate" in terms of resistance to excitation by external means. With the type of isolation that they were able to measure in direct comparison to other tables, they made that statement for good reason.

The bottom line is this: There is no other table made anywhere near the price that offers the isolation that a properly functioning Sota Sapphire or Sota Star Sapphire offers. NONE. This fact is not debatable. Whether or not you care for the table itself on a cosmetic or functional level is another matter... Sean
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1musiclover: I combined several sources of info into that one post. John Atkinson made the statements that he did in a relatively recent article about the 100 most influential audio components.

The comments regarding the isolation and review were courtesy of either Audio or High Fidelity magazine. They did a head to head comparison with a Sota ( American ), Linn ( European ) and the top of the line Kyocera / CEC ( Asian ) table. To keep things simple, the Linn did pretty poorly compared to both the Sota and the Kyocera in terms of any type of measurable testing performed with them. The reviewers made specific comments as to how poor it was at isolation and how just anything set the stylus to skipping across the grooves. Sonically, that would be a matter of preference and have a lot to do with what arms, cartridges and type of support platform that you had them on.

Since the Sota is the least susceptable to external vibration, setting it up is a lot less finicky. On top of this, it makes the job of the stylus a lot easier so that it can do a more accurate job of reproducing music rather than being interferred with. Since it can now deal with the microscopic vibrations recorded in the groove rather than having to cope with the vibrations applied externally from either floor or air-borne vibrations, the sound is more detailed with a blacker background. Like anything else that is electro-mechanical in nature, it is susceptable to tweaks and does require maintenance though. As such, one need look at customer support as an integral part of buying any turntable.

Jeff: I like the Oracle and may have purchased one of these. The problem is the availability of parts availability, shipping to and from across the border, etc... The above mentioned statements regarding the Sota and the fact that they are located less than 20 minutes from my house made things very easy to decide what to go with.

The footers that you mention are also sold by Rcreations here on Agon. They work off of the constrained layer damping idea. I don't know if they are identical to what you mentioned, but i'm sure that they are similar in concept. Sean
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