Upgrade Sota Comet or buy a used table?


I presently have a Sota Comet first generation table with a discontinued LMT2? tonearm. The bearing is gone in the tonearm and my best option so far is to upgrade the table. If I do upgrade it will be to a complete SOTA factory refurbished Comet with a S 301 tonearm. I am leaning strongly to trading in my Comet and paying $695 plus shipping of about $100.
Does this make more sense than buying a more expensive table such as a VPI Aries used for $1,000 to $1,200, and selling my Comet for $200? I am of the opinion I could still sell my "like new Comet" later for close to what I paid for the upgrade.
I presently have a Sumiko Blackbird cartridge which I plan to keep.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
128x128Ag insider logo xs@2x2bgeorge

Showing 2 responses by thesoundhouse

I had an VPI Aries that I recently got on trade. It sold fast. It is a "NICE" sounding turntable but I preferred my buddy's new Sota Comet to the VPI. More music seemed to be difference. The Sota just had more information. It was clearer smoother and had a much better tonal balance. Oddly enough we used a Sumiko Blackbird as our test cartridge on both tables. Keep in mind that there many differences and that the VPI given a different cartridge and could sound better than the Comet. For the test to be completely fair we would have to have the same tonearm on both tables just like we did with the cartridge.
I have owned too many turntables to mention and I keep going back to the Sota turntables because they are just right. I have had a few uber expensive turntables over the years. I have tried in my system the SME 10, 20, and 30 and all sounded good until I went back to Sota Nova. I tried three upper end VPI turntables, TW Acustic, Avid Actus SP One, Linn Sondek 12 Valhalla. Many other s not mentioned here and I just going back to a Sota Star Nova MK IV/III. Sota turntables let music be music. The Comet is a great sounding turntable and for $1300.00 you will not find a better table. There was a latest version of the Comet for sale here on Audiogon for less than half price. I currently own a Sota Cosmos MKIV with an SME IV.vi tonearm, Zyx 4D gold coils and a Zyx Artisan phono amp and I have the best turntables sound I have ever had. The best part is that my tables sound killer good, it has a great build quality and I can call Sota and they will most of the time answer the phone while providing great customer service. The only other turntables I like almost as much is the Origin Live.