Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

Dear Halcro, are you imply that your system set-up is neutral to the bone? and therefore it is impossible to hide inaccuracies which can drives you to mask because you can not understand their origin?
ie : arm wiring, IC, speaker and power cables and even their connectors, rack, shelfs and even the surface of contact that reacting as an interface with your items and lets not forget the selection of components inside your items and how they interact as a company and of course the cartridge/arm & phono stage interface.
It is funny how easy we can perceive a cure only with the hope that it can manage to hide the problem. I know people with 104db horns who are in search for the most slow & fat sounding capacitors (among others) in order to escape from reality.

Dear Halcro, I really appreciate your exploring mood and I admire your efforts but sometimes we must keep a second thought for what we've done even if the resulting effect is to our liking, we have to put in doubt those cheaters that may cover up the real problem. Imagine someone who has an agressive HF and covers the tweeter with a blanket instead of looking at the source of this anomaly. In every idea that I spread, my motivation is to give you some reluctancy in order to secure the right path in your experimental nature. Please do not accept my reservations as disrespect for your adventures. The lack of confidence is a must when the knowlege is restricted. Our ears can only acknowledge the problem and suggest the perceived outcome but the solution is detected by our relentless search while we maintain discipline over restricted regulations. ie : if my armboard is ringing, I have to choose another material and stop trying to damp it by wraping the hell out of it. There are rules for us to follow if we want to progress with integrity.

Dear Halcro, Prompted by Geoch's posts above, I read up the thread from there and came to your post about the unusual behavior of your motor/platter with the 1.8kg M-S copper mat on it. What is the weight of your platter alone? If the weight of the Cu mat is a significant fraction of the total weight of the platter, what you are observing means to me that the brake mechanism of the TT101 simply cannot stop the platter "dead', because of the increased momentum of the platter/mat combo. This alone would not trouble me, but it could also mean that the servo system might be "confused" by the increased rotating mass during LP play, so at the micro level, the speed control with the copper mat might be subpar. It is a fact that these systems were designed as a whole; the servo is calibrated to the mass of the stock platter/mat. I have repeatedly mentioned this; super heavy mats on a direct drive might not be such a good idea for that reason. (And then if one adds one of those 4 or 5 kg record weights, one is making the situation worse and also inviting rapid bearing wear.) What I like about the SAEC SS300 metal mat is that it weighs about the same as the stock Technics rubber mat on the SP10 Mk2A and Mk3 (they use the exact same rubber mat), so screwing up the servo is not an issue.

Go with the pigskin - it's football season.

Dear Geoch,
the felt mat I am using on top of a Micro Seiki Cu 180g mat weighs 5,9 g. It is very thin. On the back it is covered with a black laquer bringing it into good contact with the Cu 180g mat, also keeping everything absolutely flat (!).
I recall that I payed 100 Euros for the felt mat.

It is always a matter of try and error - but this combination really convinced me and believe me I tried some...

I think Halcro's experiment with the pig mat might have been successful because it is flat. Nevertheless I know some guys swearing on a wave like mat...

all the best for your experiments.

Fun Only

all the best with experimenting