Nottingham resonance control

Inna, you are absolutely right. The cones do reflect some of the energy back into the Panzerholz, where it can be dissipated as heat, and not transmitted, however indirectly, into the platter bearing. That is why I suggest a shelf of Panzerholz, or slate, or even ordinary plywood.

You bring up an excellent point. I suspect that the reason some of the exotic turntables sound great in one installation and lousy in another is just this - the refusal to engineer some important aspect of turntable design. But, as we are discussing, the refusal to engineer a problem doesn't make it go away, and we are stuck with trying to get the best sound from a partially engineered system.

At least with NA the main thing remaining to engineer is the shelf, and that is easy, and cheap.

Inna, the feet were easily pryed away with a little flat head, it appears to be just a basic adhesive on there. The feet are still plenty sticky if I want to put em back.

There is a reason why Nottingham has a cult following, both here and in Europe. Especially Spacedeck because it is not very expensive by audiophile standards.
I am not really familiar with exotic turntables. You are probably right about why they may sound so good and so bad.
Neuance shelf? I'll check it out too, thank you. I have Boston Audio Mat-1.
I am not really in a hurry, I like tuning and fine tuning the system. These things take time and patience.

Fourwinds, thank you.

Without doing anything else yet I put one smaller Walker resonance control disc on the maplebblock next to the motor. The disc doesn't touch anything. This increased clarity, it was neither subtle nor profound and definitely worth it. I'll get another disc to put on the other side next to the motor. Could be too much, though I doubt it, I'll see.
What I like most about Spacedeck is that it is very alive not a sterile machine.
After adding the Walker disc I had a chance to get Purist Colossus ferox interconnect. It replaced Maximus. One step up, significant improvement. And the Colossus is not yet fully burned in after Purist filled it with ferox. It has 120 hours on it, and Jim of Purist Audio says 200 hours. He is right, I can hear it.