DIY TT

@holmz : 

 " I’ve been looking at a few 12” arms.."

Even that you have several years in Agon and for your posts as this one seems to me that you are not very aware of what " happens " in the Analog Forum because the 12" issue was analised severakl tiems in several threads. Aniway, a 12" tonearm makes more harm than any real " help " to the cartridge works. Yes, the 12" arms looks really good but the cartridge quality performance normally is better through shorter tonearms than the 12" effective length. As larger the tonearm as slower bearing arm response to the cantilever/stylus tip tracking movements along that the inertia moment is higher and the 12" arm dynamic mass goes against the crtridge job but don't take my word  and read what the tonearms SAT designr says about and I want to tell you that I owned around 8 to 10 12" tonearms:

R.

In the other side and if you decide to go for the DP80 let the double platter in stock way, the main advantage of that double platter is to " kill " resonances. Again Denon knew what they designed.

Now, the best plith is no plinth and you can run the DP 80 in " naked " fashion with tonearms mounted in tower pods.

Btw, which TT/tonearm/cartridges do you own?

R.

Pindac, I asked about your claim that Denon made a gunmetal platter for the DP80, or that there is an aftermarket gunmetal platter for it.  Can you respond to that?

I have no beef with low mass plinths per se, but for a DD turntable, the plinth must anchor the motor so that it does not spin the chassis, or otherwise cause the whole TT to move due to Newton's Third Law of Motion (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction).  This is especially important if you use an outboard arm pod. You could use a low mass plinth, if you anchor it to a heavy shelf, for example.  But if low mass is your god, then one really ought to look at Rega turntables, which are designed from the ground up to be lossy in terms of energy retention. The notion that you need a low mass plinth so you can move your TT around to various audiophile gatherings is just not a factor for me or most of us. If portability is so important, then get a Rega which you could use just for that purpose.  I've seen Linn LP12s at audio shows, just because of their portability.  But neither would be my choice for home use.

rauliruegas 

is an absolute contradiction in terms. He revels in ancient cartridge designs and then he cow-tows to some pundit of shorter arms on the basis of technological theory. Just as measurements and specifications will not tell you how much enjoyment you will get from a piece of gear, reading white papers to decide which design is preferable is downright asinine. SAT/Gomez designs products for the 1% of the 1% and for systems that bear no resemblance to the relatively crude system of Rauliruegas. 

The truth is that a 12" arm can render more joy and appreciation of home vinyl playback than a 9" otherwise identical arm. I have lived with three different sets of otherwise identical 9" and 12" arms. The only time I preferred the shorter arm was with the otherwise awful VPI unipivots. For Rauliruegas to try to suggest that a vintage table ought to have a 9" arm because SAT arms are 9" is just, for lack of a better word, "precious". 

@rauliruegas 
I have an old Sota Saffire TT with an SAEC WE0317 arm.
Current MI cartridge is a Garrott Bros p77i, which replaces a worn out Blue Point Special… They are sort of like the SoundSmith in that they are MI.

I just picked up a secondhand phono stage that allows for LOMC cartridges to be used. So the Hana ML, AT Art, etc can now be considered, where as the previous phono stage (old ARC PH2) only did 47k MM at 42 or maybe 48 dB of gain.