which turntable to buy for $1500 best value ?

Doesn't matter were Well Tempered are made. The design is just too simple. Bill Firebaugh built one out of junk materials at a show and it still worked better than most. If I'm not mistaken that's where the golf ball tone arm paddle came from.

The problem with most tables, especially the ones on your short list, are their metal bearings in the platter and the tone arm. They all have runout which leads to chatter and the tone arms are under dampened. Rega, Marantz, Sapphire, VPI, really? The Sota is the only competition for any Well Tempered but its bottom end is weak by comparison.

I have a new $4000 Benz Ruby Z mounted on a butt old square motor WT Classic with a bent wand that I bought as junk for $200 that I was going to fix and gift it to a friend. It blew my Aries away. The Well Tempered arm is the only arm I know of that can track ALL the tonearm modulation tracks on the Shure Test Record. My (good looking $5K) VPI Aries was sold and I bought my friend a cordless drill instead.

The Clearaudio Performance with a ceramic magnetic bearing at $2800 plus a cartridge would be the only other low cost high performance table that I would recommend.

If your serious about getting the best sound per dollar from your LP's this drab looking $1K Classic and a Benz Micro Silver is within your budget.

ttp://app.audiogon.com/listings/well-tempered-classic

If looks are your priority disregard this response.

Good recommendation Vic. But does that table come with the apparently missing motor?

Shakey

Shakey,
No way in hell will either of those tables outperform an Amadeus.

I was referring to the OP's list of possible turntables, not other's references. I have no experience with the Amadeus, so I cant comment on its performance.

Smognote.
There is no oil in a Sota. I have purchased, sold and shipped many Sota Star, Sapphire and Cosmos and have never heard or seen anything regarding leaking oil.

As for a rega 250, It will work fine. I have an audiomods IV mounted on a Sota Cosmos which sounds awesome. You might want to look into getting the audiomods work done to your Rega 250. It is a bargain for what you get,.

manitunc, thanks again, for the info. it's good to know the rb250 would work for now. vic, i was wondering if you would explain run out. i do know what that is but am very interested. i [with out question] would buy a 5000 dollar table if it were in my budget. someday hopefully but for now i can not exceed 1500. now when i see something i like, i tend to look at the zip code to see if i can aviod having it shipped. is this the way most potential buyers go?