wjm@whuxk.UUCP (12/17/83)
Having just been through the looking for (and finding) a reasonably high end turntable/arm/cartridge system (about $2K or so), here are my thoughts: As for performance, its hard to fault either the Linn, the Sota Sapphire, or the Mission 775. I'm not familiar with the Oracle, so I can't comment on it, but the other three, when matched with compatable arms, are all star performers. With Linn's price reduction, they are also about the same price. I'd tend to favor the Sota or Mission (and went with Mission after reading some of their literature describing their design philosophy) since they're easier to set up. Unfortunately, the Linn is rather difficult and tricky to set up, which is why Linn sends a technician out to the customer to set up new LP-12's. That's fine for the initial setup, but what if you decide to move or rearrange your furniture? As for arms, I like Mission' 774 or the Linn Itok (I don't care for the Linn Basik, since you're stuck with their cartridge). A Grace 747 is a reasonable choice IF you can get one from a dealer with a good return policy (Grace was having QC problems for a while). As for cartridges, there are a number of high end MC units that you can look at. The key thing here is to be sure the cartridge is mechanically matched to the arm. Denon, Dynavector, and Grace (keep in mind that some Grace units are MM's, which may be a plus - you don't need a head amp or a minus - you've got to watch cable capacitance) all make excellent units BUT a given cartridge won't necessarily star in ALL arms. I'm quite pleased with a Denon DL-207 in the Mission arm (but the 207 is a light cartridge and won't work well in a heavier arm- you might want to use a Denon 103 there. On the other hand, a 103 would probably perform poorly in my arm, its a bit too heavy). Regards, Bill Mitchell Bell Laboratories (CSO after 1/1/84) Whippany, NJ (whuxk!wjm)