Thoughts About Turntable Upgrades

Sota tables are very well made, sound good, and are reasonably priced.  I don't think you will go wrong with your choice.  Basis makes terrific tables, but at a significantly incresed price (I own a Basis Debut vacuum clamp table myself).  Older VPI tables in good condition are also decent USA made choices, but I am a bit leery about current and recently made tables because of some reported reliability and poor construction issues.

If you are also looking for an American made tonearm, the Triplanar is one of the best, but current models are extremely expensive.  The Basis Vector is also good, but also somewhat pricey.  

I've spent a lot of time and money over the past 9 months getting into vinyl and comparing it to streaming.  Some quick takeaways from my experience. 

1) A good vinyl system is expensive.  Your DAC is better than your turntable/cartridge/phono stage.  It isn't surprising it sounds better to you.  You need to upgrade your cartridge and phono stage before you will really know if vinyl sounds better.  Even though I own three turntables (Rega P6, VPI Scout, Technics SL 1200GR) I still have no way of evaluating the impact a table makes since I don't own two copies of the same preamp and cartridge to do A/B testing.  So I suggest focusing on the cartridge and phono stage first.

2) Once you have actually optimized your vinyl setup I think you will find that new records are rarely worse than streaming (excluding surface noise) and are mostly noticeably better.  But with well produced new music the differences are usually quite small.   Old records are almost always significantly better than streaming.

3) Whether the expense and hassle of vinyl is worth it is quite subjective.  If you primarily play new music I would suggest not bothering until you have run out of other ways to optimize your system.  

In my experience vinyl is amazing, but very expensive to tap into the magic.

I currently have a VPI Prime Signature-Pass XP-17(Phono)-Ortofon Cadenza Bronze cartridge-Audience SX phono cable.  This is around 15K to spin records and its sounds great, but in my journey it took the above system to really bring out the magic.

Also records are very expensive, I only usually buy first pressings in excellent shape. You will also need a record vacuum/washer...this is mandatory.

I'm also not a huge fan of having to manually lift the needle off the record when its done playing.

Also as your record collection grows....they take up a lot of space. Also there very heavy in bulk piles when trying to move or reorganize. There also not so easy to sell if needed.

I am blessed with a great system digitally also. This gets the majority of my playing music. Its easy and convenient.

I thought I had quelled my long held passion for Vinyl used as a Source in a audio system.

I feel almost hypocritical in relation to this thread, as I own a Bespoke Built Valve DAC produced by a Bulgarian Designer. I felt this allowed for the OP and myself to share a little common ground in relation to a Digital Source and especially the DAC's used.

A recent experience, which has been a very non-vinyl encounter, has had a profound effect, which has fired up / stoked my passion to extend the experiences available to me, for how I experience Vinyl Replays being produced through my system.

I do state, all said previously from myself stands and is relevant for the OP, but this dog has got a itch that seemingly won't quieten until it has had a 'good ole' Scratch. 

I also have Vladimer's Toubadour IV SE....great dac for the $......I also have 400 Vinyl albums....Never played them much then bought the Hana $1200 MC low output cart. The PS Audio STELLAR phono amp is much better than the more expensive Parasound so the Parasound went back.....Now it's 25% Vinyl and 75% CD.  Get that Vinyl back out and enjoy it. Get a good record cleaning machine for about $200 from Upscale. It's worth it !