I have 3 TT s in PA slate and am very pleased with performance but I did not sample a wide variety of materials so would not claim slate is absolutely the best. So what do you prefer, fsonic?
Hi Lewm. I would love to claim that I have tried a slate plinth with either my TD124 or 301 but that would not be true. So when I responded above that it is not true that slate is optimum, I did so brashly and from trusted wisdom. That said, I went through a series of turntables starting in the early 2000's and then started focusing on idlers in the last fifteen. I have talked at length with many experts. I have experimented with several different wood plinths and with multiple platters on both of my idlers. Unfortunately our niche (idler drive turntables) within a niche hobby does not result in very much scientific analysis of matters such as vibration damping properties of alternating layers of birch vs. slate. If you do some research you will find some good threads on the Lenco Heaven site. Slate is not known for absorbing or damping motor vibration or any other vibration. Our lizard brains just assume that slate being heavy and massive it must be good for something like a plinth.
I have no doubt that a Garrard 301/401 can sound very good mounted on a slate plinth. My unsupported belief is that the sound you will get is not consistent with the best characteristics of idlers. To draw an analogy, why would anyone take a Harbeth loudspeaker and convert the enclosure from wood to Magico-style alloy keeping everything else equal?