Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

Radicalsteve congratulations on acquiring the Kenwood LO7D, I think a spectacular direct drive and by far the best performing dd that I have owned so far.

Just a friendly suggestion, the top portion of the platter on the LO7D is stainless steel and you may find using just a good centre weight, like a TTM oil damping weight, could be more to your liking then the MS cu180.
Besides thats a lot of extra weight I think not really intended for the table design.

I would recommend the Goldmund or the Boston MAT 2
If you have access try the Lexan for spaciousness or Metacrylate.
Delrin is not bad also if is in between cork (lower level)& copper (upper level). The sound of Delrin is dull/cloudy 'cause of it's damping ability.

I must admit that Copper mat is not my fav, as I've found it somewhat coarse with a rough and overwhelming projection but also overall thin body of sound. Maybe this reflects the system matching & fine tuning in my set-up? I don't know but I would love if it could manage to sounds like it looks. Not Delrin, neither Copper but also never anything soft with even the slightest elasticity no matter if it is cork or leather or felt or especially rubber.

The Cu180 on its own does have a slight brittleness in the highest frequencies but if one places a very thin leather, suede or felt mat on top, this vanishes and the bottom end solidifies even further.
I've reached a compromise by eliminating the Victor rubber mat and placing the very thin Victor suede (pigskin) mat directly on the aluminium platter.
This gives me almost the same advantages of the Cu180 yet the platter stops dead and reverses slightly exactly as the manual dictates.

Hi Halcro -
I suddenly realised from In_shores post that my 4.5kg copper mat is used with the recommended 1.8kg gunmetal weight. The key to successfully using a copper mat is probably the use of a weight in combination with it.
Some of my friends have used Goldmund Mats with their SP10 MkIII's with some success.
Have you thought about trying the original thicker Acromat or Graphite - these would be worth trying in my view, perhaps along with a lighter record weight.
On the Goldmund Studio's a couple of mates had ruby thrustpads made - maybe its worth thinking about whether you can improve the existing bearing. ??