I've been using a Well Tempered table and arm since they first came out in the early 80's. How quick everyone is to just assume the VPI is better than the WT. If you can find it, locate Moncrieff's excellent analysis and review of the original WT table. When properly set up, and I admit that it can be a bear, the WT is one of the best sounding tables out there without taking out a second mortgage or selling one of the kids.
Here's the last paragraph of Robert Greene's review in TAS:
"As high-end turntables go, the Amadeus is inexpensive. And it offers so much of the optimum performance possible at any price that one can only think of it as a wild bargain. In fact, there are important aspects of performance that I think would be hard to equal elsewhere and perhaps impossible to exceed. Certainly no tonearm has a quieter bearing than pure damping, for example. And the quiet of the platter bearing is also essentially total. One could spend a lot more money, but I would listen carefully to the Amadeus first. It is something exceeding fine, far beyond its modest price."
Here's the last paragraph of Robert Greene's review in TAS:
"As high-end turntables go, the Amadeus is inexpensive. And it offers so much of the optimum performance possible at any price that one can only think of it as a wild bargain. In fact, there are important aspects of performance that I think would be hard to equal elsewhere and perhaps impossible to exceed. Certainly no tonearm has a quieter bearing than pure damping, for example. And the quiet of the platter bearing is also essentially total. One could spend a lot more money, but I would listen carefully to the Amadeus first. It is something exceeding fine, far beyond its modest price."