@bpoletti IIRC the Aires came out well after the original TNTs. The original TNT platter (and I still use one and would not part with it) was lead filled acrylic. It was a heavier version of what they used on the later versions of the HW-19. (Earlier HW-19 versions used aluminum-lead.) According to what HW has written somewhere, it could be the best VPI platter ever made.
When VPI gave up using lead, they made platters of an acrylic and metal sandwich. It was used on the later TNTs and the Aires. Later they dropped the metal and used acrylic only. A demand for a heavier platter pushed them to the "super platter" which was again a metal-acrylic sandwich.
My recollection is that when they added the metal, to the acrylic it was to replace the lead so that there was, in fact, no metal-lead-acrylic platter.