Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

No. I've compared it to a Garrard 401 with the same cartridge (SPU Gold) but with different tonearms and preferred the GT2000.

I haven't seen either the GT2000X or the YGT-1 platter in real life. They're both pretty rare but do occasionally pop up on the net.

I have now compared the Jico leather mat with the custom rubber mat that comes with the Exclusive P3.

Overall the leather mat has good transparency let down by a softening of the leading edge of instruments and a slight fattening of the sound in the upper bass. would probably be good with neutral/lean SS gear.

The P3 rubber mat is more coherent top to bottom and the music is more involving.

A bit of a PITA is the thicker mat is not flat - it bows where the Jico cattle mark is. Makes every lp look like it is bowed. Sort of defeats the purpose of a mat when it cannot effectively coiuple the lp to the platter.

YMMV

Still have to compare on my P10 and TW Acustik.

cheers

I concur. First job of a mat is to be flat. Of course, the platter supporting it has to be perfectly flat too.

I read on Karma that deer hide is better so I got a thin one (< 2mm) figuring a thick one would have too much give. Although it looks to be of uniform thickness results were similar to Downunder. Mild edge warps looked exaggerated and it seemed that repositioning the record didn't correct.

I tried this on top of 2mm SRM acrylic mat that's just a bit too hard IMO, but sounds better w/o the leather. Putting the suede side up seemed to help a bit, but not that much.

Fleib
Mild edge warps looked exaggerated and it seemed that repositioning the record didn't correct.

The weight of the album did not flatten the warps in the mat? Seeing it is <2mm and pliable you'd think it would.

Or perhaps the diameter of the mat extended past the platter where the wave's were present.