Vinyl Asylum: REVIEW: Sota Nova Turntables by levinsje

Model:	Nova
Category:	Turntables
Suggested Retail Price:	$3800
Description:	Vacuum control turntable
Manufacturer URL:	Sota
Model Picture:	View

Review by levinsje on December 24, 2009 at 08:13:35
IP Address: 74.243.179.61 Add Your Review
for the Nova

The Nova is directly below the Cosmos in the Sota turntable line and incorporates several Cosmos features including the vinyl-format mat and sapphire/zirconium inverted bearing. It also includes the composite arm board, reflex clamp and vacuum control. The power supply and vacuum system is in a separate enclosure which is completely quiet and seamless in my system. It flattens about 95% of my records along with the reflex clamp. My arm is the Origin illustrious and the cartridge used is a Shelter 90X. The Nova weight about 45 lbs with a 15 lb platter and took about 2 months to be hand built. It is absolutely beautiful with mine having a cherry wood finish. The owners Kirk and Donna gave me excellent customer support and email responses. Kirk handles the technical side of the operation and it is obvious he is very passionate about his work.

My older system is an Origin Aurora turntable with Origin Silver tonearm which has fantastic performance for the money. I moved this to another part of my house. I had used a Shelter 501 and 90X with this system.

The rest of the review will be comparing the differences to my system above. The Origin illustrious tonearm also made a very significant improvement and it was tested on my Origin Aurora turntable. The improvement with the new arm was almost as much as the improvement going to the new turntable. Below is a list of improvements with the Sota Nova/Origin illustrious combination:

The improvements were significant including:
*Dead-on pitch
*Incredible black background, especially during quiet passages. It is eerie how quiet the background noise is compared to my other system.
*Deeper, tighter, and more accurate bass.
*Much improved soundstage and 3D effect.
*Cleaner midrange.
*Increased upper frequencies.
*Overall improvement in transparancy.

I know this has been said many times before but it is also applicable in my review. It seems as though a vail (that was not even noticed before) was removed from my system.

This was a significant cost increase over my Origin Aurora/Silver combo but the improvements are dramatic and across the board.

Very highly recommended.

Product Weakness:	Does not "suger coat" bad sounding vinyl.
Product Strengths:	See above<br>It is like I am hearing all my vinyl for the first time. Constantly I hear music passages I have never heard before.

Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier: Diy Welborne 300B Terraplane monoblocks
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): Heavily Modified Ming Da MC 2A3
Sources (CDP/Turntable): 95% vinyl
Speakers: DIY Supravox 8
Cables/Interconnects: DIY and anticable speaker cables
Music Used (Genre/Selections): blues, jazz, classic rock
Room Size (LxWxH): 30' x 15' x 8'
Room Comments/Treatments: DIY 4
Time Period/Length of Audition: one month
Other (Power Conditioner etc.): Panamax
Type of Audition/Review: Product Owner
Your System (if other than home audition): n/a

Amplifier:	Diy Welborne 300B Terraplane monoblocks
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Heavily Modified Ming Da MC 2A3
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	95% vinyl
Speakers:	DIY Supravox 8
Cables/Interconnects:	DIY and anticable speaker cables
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	blues, jazz, classic rock
Room Size (LxWxH):	30' x 15' x 8'
Room Comments/Treatments:	DIY 4
Time Period/Length of Audition:	one month
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	Panamax
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner
Your System (if other than home audition):	n/a