"Hxt1, No need to apologize here for what you may have written on the LL forum. The tete a tete between the Welsh and Pennsylvania slate deck makers on the Vinyl Asylum was pretty hostile and revealed two fairly closed minds. I am sure you slate-ers can all just get along."
The problem between this pair of slate providers, as I see it, is that one of them accuses the other of selling inferior slate which I assure you is untrue. He even goes so far as to feature a photograph that he borrowed from a roofing seller's website to supposedly demonstrate the inferior nature of his competitor's product. The truth is that the photograph is unfounded for a variety of reasons. For one, its origin is unknown, and if it is indeed of a Pennsylvania slate roof, its age cannot be established. In any event, it is not evidence because it may be from a Tri-State area where acid rain took a particularly harsh toll, and the fact is that there are scores of roofs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York that have survived over one hundred years, not to mention neighborhood sidewalks which would be a more fair comparison. But then, we aren't building roofs or sidewalks, are we? No, we are making turntables which see only indoor use, so the entire point is moot. What we are left with is the sonic quality of various types of slate, and no one has ever demonstrated a difference one way or the other. One would probably be safe in presuming the heavier plinth to be more effective, and perhaps the one of softer stone. Why would the softer variety be better? Well, if you consider slate as a constrained layer material, which it is, then resonances would travel through those layers slower and more diffused than in the harder variety, but probably not enough to make a difference. In the end, it may come down to sheer mass and design. So why is either so expensive? That may be a simple economic reason. Water jet time is very expensive (that is how those plinths are cut), some samples of slate crack and are wasted, and some sellers pay extra for selected clear grained slate. It's a case where one should carefully scrutinize the product, and go with his best judgment, in my opinion.
Regards,
mosin
