How does wood hardness affect the sound of a TT on a wood TT platform?

One does not need to search too hard to discover a Board produced as a

'Phenolic Resin Impregnated Densified Wood'  

is the material where the the Damping and Dissipation Properties are very attractive to be used in a Audio Set Up.

Today it is quite easy to find, TT Plinths, Sub Plinths, Tonearm Wands, Headshells, Speaker Baffles or Full Cabinets and even Chassis and Bespoke Component Casings are being produced from material with the properties of Branded Board Material.

Most of the annual volume of Phenolic Resin Impregnated Densified Wood on the market consists of resin-impregnated densified veneer products, while solid resinimpregnated timber boards are rare. Some example of names or tradenames of densified material, some of them not existing anymore, are: Bakelisiertes Holz, Carbonwood, Compreg, Delignit, Delignit-Feinholz, Dehonit, Hydulignum, Insulam, Insulcul, Jablo, Jabroc, jicwood, Kunstharzschichtholz, Lignofol (Preβschichtholz), Lignostone (Preβvollholz), MyWood2, obo-Festholz, Panzerholz (Delignit), Permawood, Permali, Pregwood, Ranprex, Sonowood, Staypak, Surendra, Transformerwood, and VANyCARE.

Typical products made from this type of densified wood are storage containers for liquid natural gas and associated support structures, wear plates for machinery and transportation vehicles, machine-pattern moulds, tooling, jigs, bulletproof barriers, security panels, transformer parts, neutron shielding, audio.

Picawood is not in the above list, this is a board produced with increased plies of veneer to the typical production methods where up to 25 Boards are compressed to produce a 1" (25mm) board.

It is typically a guidance to use Cross Grain Ply Board  @ 25 Plies per 1" (25mm).  

I would really like to see a Three x Orientation for the Plies, but when discussing with an individual has a direct communication with a manufacturer, the batch to be produced was quite substantial, way beyond a Group Buy quantity and the Wastage as a result of the orientation laminations was to be quite substantial as well.  

Kaiser Speakers has a bespoke board produced using similar to the Three Orientation design, to improve on the already impressive Dissipation properties of Cross Grain.

After nearly 4 years, the OP probably gave up and got real a real isolation platform-Minus K.

Since no self-respecting, audiophile, least of all any of us, places a component in direct contact with a shelf, with no intervening exotic footer designed to isolate the component from the shelf, I think it makes very little difference what kind of wood is used for the support system, so long as it is very stiff and rigid. The issue of transmitting energy into the structure and dissipating that energy is moot, if you have a good footer, which all of us do I am sure. Also, I think we all broach subjects like this on the premise that there are vast amounts of energy to be dealt with when in reality the magnitude is relatively tiny to begin with.

Before I buy something I try to understand the physics behind it.  

As a Observer looking in, from my Keyboard End, it is seemingly easy to discover there are behavioural limiters that are stuck to certain individuals within this Analogue Forum like flies to a released motion.

The real Arch to Learning and New Found Behavioural Freedom is to be discovered when such as the following can be acknowledged.

   "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

The real WOW to be found is when it is a regular practiced chain of thought where "contempt prior to investigation" is recognised in one's chain of thought and the efforts are made for it to be avoided.

This is not limited to an Audio Experience only, life is so much more fun as a Blank Page to be constantly filled up as an evolving Text Book.