This may be only tangentially related, but where damping is most advantageous, and is of most potential benefit, is at the pickup/cartridge/headshell end of the tonearm. In the late-60’s/early-70’s, turntable design was investigated in depth at the Cransfield Institute of Technology in England (perhaps England’s equivalent of MIT. Am I alone in considering England the motherload of all things LP related? And not because my bloodline is over 50% English/Irish ;-), where the concept of a trough of silicon damping fluid into which is inserted a "paddle" (a hollow aluminum tube), the upper end of which is attached to the arm’s headshell, was proposed. More detailed information about that research is readily available to those interested enough to search for it.
Max Townshend, a brilliant mechanical and electronic engineer, licensed the rights to the idea, and designed a turntable incorporating (amongst other concepts) the front-end damping developed at Cransfield, which works with all pivoted arms: The Townshend Audio Rock Turntable. The Rock has been available in seven different incarnations (currently out-of-production), and is a turntable rarely seen for sale second-hand. I bought mine (a Rock Elite Mk.2) almost thirty years ago, and though modestly priced (and modest in appearance), it is my most prized hi-fi component. I own a gun, but it is my Rock which would need to be pried from my cold, head hands.
