High mass vs Low Mass Turntables - Sound difference?


As I am recently back playing with analog gear after some 15 years away, I thought I would ask the long time experts here about the two major camps of record players -- high vs low mass-loaded-type tables...

For example, an equivalently priced VPI table (say a Classic, Aries or Prime) versus a Rega RP8/10 or equivalent Funk Firm table...  the design philosophies are so different ... one built like a tank, the other like a lightweight sports car...

Just wondering if the folks here have had direct experience with such or similar tables, and what have been your experiences and sense of strengths and weaknesses of these two different types of tables.



128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xjjss49
Sorbothane is an excellent damping plastic material (another type of plastic polymer). I would agree that a heavy turntable with constrained layer damping or with sorbothane plastic footers will be an improvement on just a heavy turntable alone. 

Note I never said that damping is not good with turntables. I only said that high mass turntables perform better than low mass turntables in my experience. I suspect that very light weight plastic-based material turntables are  just cheap products that are inexpensive to make and low cost to ship. A heavy weight turntable requires commensurate shipping materials and even a crate. 

I maintain that light weight turntables are of greatest benefit to the manufacturer and retailer rather than the end user - cheap to make and a light weight plater can run on a cheaper smaller motor, cheaper to package and ship too.
From the Sorbothane Wikipedia page,

"Sorbothane exhibits many of the properties of rubber, silicone, and other elastic polymers. It is considered to be a good vibration damping material, an acoustic insulator, and highly durable. An unusually high amount of the energy from an object dropped onto Sorbothane is absorbed. The feel and damping qualities of Sorbothane have been likened to those of meat."

The last sentence caught my eye. Has anyone thought about using meat under components or speakers? One suspects Spam might be the cost benefit champion. Span in a can already has a constrained layer constrained - the can. But there probably isn’t a real substitute for Filet Mignon. Why use a synthetic when you can use the real McCoy?  It’s in the meat!
Yes, meat.  Highly underrated, lol.  I think at some point value becomes the determining factor for many. Spending 3-5k on chipboard, plastic and glass seems a stretch when compared to mass design approaches. 

I'm hungry now!  High mass tables certainly do a better job of tenderizing.  Think I'll rip that porterhouse from under the table and fire up the grill