Replacing my old soda Sapphire: which clearaudio

Except that Manitunc does not mention the negative aspects of the spring suspension on the SOTA. This is one of the age-old controversies among vinylphiles. There are inherent advantages and disadvantages to both unsprung and sprung designs. This is not to say that I would choose Clearaudio over SOTA.

What is the disadvantage?

The suspension system needs to be damped, else the chassis will continue to bounce up and down well after the inciting force has passed. The designer also needs to tune the suspension so as to filter out frequencies around a certain set point. These choices and how they are achieved have major effects on the outcome. Also, suspensions can limit the weight of the tonearm that can be used, because the tonearm can cause the suspension to sag eccentrically. (In fairness, SOTA has a nice way of getting around the problem.) But finally, once you have a suspension, you have to worry about where and how to mount the motor. If the motor is not also suspended, then when the suspension is flexing it is also changing the length of the flexible belt. And the belt would have to be flexible to permit this action. Stretching of the belt leads to very audible pitch variation, and stretchy belts also increase "belt creep". Early SOTAs were very prone to this problem. So then the motor needs to be mounted ON the suspended part of the chassis (as SOTA does do these days, or so I am told), which means that its vibrations and noise are right on board with the springy suspension. Also its mass, which is another source of unbalance and sagging. Yadayada.

Thank you for this information. All I can say is my Sota, which is old, has an outboard power source. If I understand your post above, that should alleviate some of the concern, no?

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.